The Nightingale Girls (17 page)

‘Fine, I’ll take it back—’ He reached for the note, but June snatched it away before he could reach it.

‘I’ll take it for housekeeping,’ she sniffed through her tears. ‘You keep me short anyway. Someone has to put a roof over our heads.’

We wouldn’t have much of a roof if it was left to you, Nick thought. He’d been the man of the house since long before his useless father slung his hook, dodging school to do all kinds of odd jobs and errands. He’d sold scrap metal, worked as a bookie’s runner, even collected and sold horse manure. Anything to make a few pennies.

But not for much longer. One day soon he and Danny would be on their way to a better life in America. And his mother would have to find someone else to pay for her gin.

‘For the last time, Mum, will you come and have your dinner?’ Rose Doyle said in exasperation.

Nanna Winnie reluctantly put down the glass she had been holding up to the wall. ‘I’m only interested,’ she grumbled.

‘So am I,’ Bea piped up. ‘What’s going on, Nan?’

‘It’s none of our business,’ Rose said shortly. ‘Now, everyone, sit down at the table.’

Her mother had done them all proud again, Dora thought, as she watched Alf pick up the carving knife. All day the house had been filled with tempting aromas, and
now the table groaned with a feast of chicken, stuffing, roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots and Brussels sprouts. It was a far cry from the poor food she was used to at the nurses’ home, all greasy grey stews, bullet hard potatoes and burnt porridge.

It was a far cry from the kind of Christmases they’d had after her father died, too. Dora could still remember how bleak it had been, with barely any money for coal on the fire or food on the table, let alone presents. Her mum had done her best for her kids, working all the hours she could and going without herself to provide for them. She kept a cheerful smile painted on for her family, but at night, after they had gone to bed, Dora had often heard her crying through the paper-thin wall that separated them.

It was a different story now. Dora looked around at her brothers and sisters all crowded around the small table, their faces lit up with anticipation, and at her mother, smiling as she served the dinner to her family. She was in her element, radiantly happy to have all her kids around her. Even Dora’s elder brother Peter, just twenty and newly married, was there with his young wife Lily. She looked around shyly, not used to such a big, noisy gathering. She had been brought up in an orphanage, and had no family of her own.

‘This is for you.’ Alf’s eyes met Dora’s as he passed her plate down the table to her, shattering her moment of happiness. Just being in the same room as him made her skin crawl. She wished she could scream out, tell everyone what a monster he was. But as Alf knew only too well, she could never admit her shame to anyone, or destroy her family’s happiness.

The sound of the Rileys’ front door crashing shut made the windows rattle. Everyone jumped. ‘Sounds like June’s
going out for another session,’ Nanna Winnie said, helping herself to sprouts.

Rose shook her head pityingly. ‘What those poor boys have to put up with. It’s terrible, it really is.’

Dora saw the thoughtful look on her mother’s face, and knew what was coming next. Everyone else knew it, too.

‘No, Rose,’ Alf said. ‘We’re not taking in any waifs and strays.’

‘They’re not strays. They’re our neighbours.’ Rose looked at her husband pleadingly.

‘As if we’ve got room for visitors,’ Nanna grumbled. ‘The house is like the Black Hole of Calcutta as it is.’

‘I’m not sitting here stuffing my face while those boys are next door starving, Mum,’ Rose said, putting down her knife and fork. ‘Sorry, but it wouldn’t feel right. I know what it feels like to go hungry, and I wouldn’t want to see anyone else’s kids go through it. We’ll find room for them somewhere. Dora, go and fetch them in.’

She climbed the broken fence and knocked on the Rileys’ back door, almost certain it was a fool’s errand. If Nick was reluctant to accept a couple of mince pies, he certainly wasn’t going to come and have Christmas dinner with them!

He opened the door a crack and scowled out at her. ‘What do you want?’

Nothing, if you’re going to talk to me like that, she thought. But she suppressed her irritation. ‘Mum says to invite you in for your dinner.’

‘We don’t need no charity.’

Dora looked at his stubborn face. She couldn’t really blame him for his pride, she was guilty enough of it herself.

‘It’s not charity,’ she said. ‘It’s just families helping each other out like we always have. But you please yourself,’ she shrugged. ‘If you want to go hungry because of your
pride, then that’s your business. But I don’t think it’s fair to make your brother go without, just because you can’t accept a bit of kindness from a neighbour.’

As she turned to go, Nick suddenly said, ‘Wait.’

She looked back at him. His dark features were gathered in a frown, as if he was wrestling with his inner feelings. ‘We’ll come,’ he said finally. ‘For Danny’s sake.’

Don’t do us any favours, will you? Dora felt like saying. But she bit her tongue, knowing the door was likely to be slammed in her face if she did.

The Riley boys came into the kitchen warily, looking around them as if they’d arrived in a foreign country.

‘Don’t just stand there, boys. Come and have something to eat.’ Rose beamed at them. ‘Have you got those plates, Josie? Set a couple of places over there, next to you. Nick, you sit next to Dora.’

Rose piled their plates full of food. Danny fell on his immediately but Nick was more cautious.

‘Look at that poor little bugger,’ Nanna Winnie said in a loud whisper. ‘Anyone would think he hadn’t eaten for a week.’

Dora shot her grandmother a silencing look, but she and Bea were too busy staring at Danny in fascination, as if they were watching a wild animal in the zoo.

Dora and Nick didn’t speak or make eye contact all the way through dinner but she was aware of him crammed in beside her, so close she could feel his broad shoulder brushing against hers. She was also conscious of Nanna watching them both with interest.

After the meal was over, Nick helped clear the table. He and Dora carried the plates through to the scullery while Danny sat on the rug in front of the fire with Little Alfie, helping him construct a tower with his new bricks.

‘I’ll help wash up,’ Josie offered, but Nanna stopped her.

‘Leave them be,’ she said, in another loud whisper. ‘You never know, they might want to be alone together.’

Dora felt a cold trickle of horror run down the back of her neck. Please, Nanna, don’t, she prayed.

‘Why?’ Bea asked.

‘Because it’s about time our Dora started courting. And I reckon Nick Riley’s as good a bet as any of ’em around here.’

Dora didn’t dare turn around. She was aware that Nick had suddenly gone very still beside her.

‘But you said Nick Riley was a dirty little sod who wasn’t safe to be left alone with any girl!’ Bea reminded her loudly.

‘That’s as may be, but I reckon our Dora should be all right. She’s a sensible girl. And anyway, she can’t afford to be too fussy!’

Dora flushed crimson as they stood at the sink in silence, her washing the dishes, Nick drying. She was so mortified she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. She was so flummoxed that she didn’t think about what she was doing. As she went to put a plate on the draining board, it slipped out of her hands and smashed to pieces on the stone-tiled floor.

‘Bugger!’

She crouched to pick them up but Nick was there before her. ‘Let me,’ he said. ‘You might cut yourself. You fetch some newspaper.’

Dora found some old newspaper in the kindling basket, and spread it out on the tiled floor. Nick carefully picked up the pieces.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘One less to dry up.’

They both knew she wasn’t talking about the smashed plate.

She glanced sideways at him. The curve at the corner of his mouth might not have counted in most people, but it was the closest she had ever seen Nick Riley come to a smile.

CHRISTMAS DAY ON
Holmes had started with the laying out of a corpse.

When Sister Holmes arrived on the ward that morning, her main concern was what kind of mess the night staff had left in the ward kitchen. They were careless enough at the best of times, but on Christmas Eve night there was bound to be some extra merriment. Some of the nurses had been particularly giddy as they’d done their traditional Christmas Eve carol singing around the wards, their cloaks turned inside out to show the red lining, each carrying a candle glowing inside a jam jar. She only hoped none of them had found their way into the locked cupboard where she kept the emergency brandy supply.

But there was no giddiness, just sombre faces all round as the Night Sister told her Mr Oliver had died just after dawn.

It was the last thing Sister Holmes was expecting. After recovering so well for weeks he had taken a sudden turn for the worse during the night. Everyone said after his accident he was lucky to escape death; now it seemed death had come to claim him after all.

Sister Holmes looked around the nurses who’d come on duty an hour earlier. Young Tremayne and Hollins were white-faced and shaken. Even Staff Nurse Mary Lund, who had been her right-hand woman for five
years, was downcast. Although as an experienced nurse, she did a better job than the students of not showing it.

‘I know this is a sad time for all of us but remember we have a duty to our other patients,’ Sister Holmes reminded them all when she handed out the work lists for that day. ‘It’s Christmas Day, and these men are away from their loved ones, lonely and in pain. We must be professional and put aside our own feelings. Try to make the day as pleasant for them and for ourselves as possible.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ they chorused.

‘Hollins, I want you to perform last offices.’

Hollins looked up sharply. ‘But Sister—’

‘I don’t believe I asked for a debate, Hollins.’ She shot the student a sharp, silencing look.

‘Are you sure I shouldn’t do it, Sister?’ Mary Lund asked as the girls headed for the sluice. ‘He’s only a young man, not much older than they are . . .’

‘They are nurses, Lund. They must learn to do their duty whatever the circumstances.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘It’s a hard lesson, Lund, but this is a hard profession. The sooner they realise that, the better.’ Especially Hollins, she thought. If she put as much care and thought into her work as she did into flirting with the young doctors, she might even manage to pass her state exams.

Mary Lund lowered her eyes. ‘Yes, Sister.’

Sister Holmes went to her office and closed the door. Sitting down at her desk, she loosened the strings of her starched bonnet from under her chin and massaged her pounding temples. Less than half an hour into her duty and she was already exhausted. She had no idea how she
was ever going to get through the next twelve hours, let alone stay cheerful for the patients.

All her strength had been spent on her mother. She had been awake most of the night, in and out of bed, pacing the floor of her bedroom, wandering on the landing, searching for her dead husband. She had fought as her daughter tried to comfort her.

‘Who are you? I don’t know you. Get out!’ she’d screamed.

‘Shhh, Mother. It’s me, Miranda.’

‘You’re not Miranda.’ The old woman shrank away from her, her face contorted with horror. ‘Miranda is at school. You’re not my daughter!’

And then she had had to calm and coax and whisper to her, until the moment came when her mother finally remembered again. It saddened her so much to see the confusion and panic in her face as she realised that more than twenty years had somehow slipped by, and she was no longer Elise Pallister, the beautiful and celebrated stage actress, but an old, sick woman whose husband was dead and whose daughter was a grown woman she barely recognised.

Miranda had put her mother back to bed and rocked her like a child until finally she fell asleep just before dawn. Then she had left her in the care of their housekeeper Mrs Jarvis and come on duty.

It was almost a relief to step inside the gates of the Nightingale, where she could cease to be Miranda Pallister with all her worries and heartache and become Sister Holmes instead. Here, on the ward, she could impose order. She had patients to care for, and nurses who needed her calm authority. For a few hours at least, she had the perfect excuse to switch off and forget all about what was happening at home.

Except she never did. The sadness and anxiety were always there, tugging at the corners of her mind.

A soft tap on the door disturbed her thoughts.

‘Sister?’ Staff Nurse Lund called. ‘Mr Hopkins is here to take Mr Oliver away. Shall I deal with it?’

‘I’m just coming.’ Sister Holmes quickly rearranged her cap, fastening the strings with shaking fingers. She gave herself a careful once over in the looking glass to make sure she looked as immaculate as ever. Her nurses and patients expected nothing less than perfection from her.

As she practised a smile at her reflection, she remembered how she used to watch with fascination as her mother put on her make-up, sitting at her dressing table surrounded by powder and paint.

‘You have to put on a face for your public, darling,’ she’d always said.

Sister Holmes adjusted her cap and went out to meet her public.

Helen couldn’t stop thinking about Mr Oliver as she did TPRs. She couldn’t begin to imagine how his family would feel, waking up on Christmas morning to the news that their son was dead. And what about his girlfriend, that poor girl who had sat so devotedly at his bedside, stroking his hand and telling him she loved him?

And the fact that it happened on Christmas Day, a day that was supposed to be so full of hope and expectation, just made it seem even more cruel somehow.

His passing cast a shadow over the rest of the ward. As the news rippled through the rest of the patients, the men became subdued. There was none of the usual banter and merriment that usually accompanied the early morning routine. Everyone had taken Percy Oliver to their hearts,
willing him to get better. Not just because he seemed like a nice lad, but because his miraculous recovery from surgery gave them all hope that they would pull through, too.