The Nightingale Girls (24 page)

‘I am when I want something, Nurse T.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t keep calling you that, can I? Can I at least know your name?’

‘Helen.’

‘Helen.’ He paused for a moment, savouring it. ‘I knew you’d have a beautiful name. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.’ He smiled. ‘And I reckon now I’m not a patient any more, you can call me Charlie.’ He took her hand and shook it. ‘I’ll see you in three months, Helen.’

‘If you say so . . . Charlie.’

But as she watched him walk away, Helen knew she would never see him again. In three months’ time he would have gone back to his old life and forgotten all about her.
Which was probably just as well since her mother would never allow her to have a boyfriend.

She smiled to herself as she carried the vase back to the ward. But it was still a nice idea while it lasted.

‘
SEE ANYTHING YOU
like, young lady?’

Mr Solomon crept from behind the curtained-off area at the back of the shop, his tread so soft Dora hadn’t heard him approach. ‘Or perhaps you have something you wish to offer me?’ he suggested

‘I’m looking for something . . .’ She peered into the glass-fronted case, crammed full of watches, rings, brooches and trinkets, each with its own sad story to tell. How desperate did a woman have to be to part with her wedding ring, or a man to hand over his precious war medals, knowing they might never see them again?

‘So you have something special in mind?’ He took a jingling ring of keys out of his pocket and selected one. ‘A ring, perhaps? Or a bracelet? I have one here that might suit you . . .’

‘A necklace,’ Dora said. ‘A – friend – brought it in last month. You gave him money for it.’

‘And now you want it back?’ He opened up the case. ‘A necklace, you say? What does it look like?’

‘It’s silver, shaped like a little hand. But I don’t see it here . . .’

‘Ah, you mean the hamsa?’ Mr Solomon smiled. ‘I remember it now. That Riley boy brought it in a few weeks ago.’

Dora nodded eagerly. ‘That’s it. Do you have it?’

‘I’m afraid not, young lady. I made young Nick an offer for it, but he turned me down. Seemed to think it
was worth more than I was offering. Cheeky little
ganef
thought he could swindle me in my own shop.’ He cleared his throat in disgust and spat into a grubby handkerchief.

Dora began to panic. ‘So where is it now?’

‘How should I know? Knowing that boy, he probably flogged it down the Rose and Crown.’ Mr Solomon shrugged. ‘You’ll have a job getting it back, I reckon. He should have sold it to me,’ he called after her, as she rushed out of the shop. ‘At least I would have kept it safe for you.’

Dora was seething as she stomped back through the market. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the street was busy. On one side, people picked and argued over secondhand clothes spread out on canvas sheets across the pavement. On the other side were stalls selling fruit and veg and seafood. The sharp, salty smell mingled with the tang of fried onions and the tempting aroma of freshly baked bread. Usually Dora loved the sights, sounds and smells of the market, but today she was too furious to notice them.

Mr Solomon was right, she stood no chance of getting her hamsa back. It could be anywhere. The thought of it hanging round the neck of one of Nick Riley’s tarty girlfriends made her feel sick. I should never have trusted him, she thought. Now she’d lost her precious hamsa and let Esther Gold down, and it was all
his
fault.

Back at the Nightingale, she headed straight for the porters’ lodge.

Mr Hopkins was very put out when she marched in. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he spluttered. ‘You can’t come barging in here . . .’

‘I’m looking for Nick Riley. Where is he?’

‘Having his tea break. But you can’t go in there!’ he
shouted after her as she marched past him. ‘I’ll tell Matron. This area is restricted to porters only, not nurses. You have to go through the proper channels . . .’

Nick was in the back room, playing cards around an upturned tea chest with a few of the other porters.

‘I want a word with you,’ Dora said.

‘All right, Nick? What you been up to then?’ one of the other porters cackled.

‘Hope you haven’t been a naughty boy?’ another laughed.

‘Wouldn’t be the first time if he was, would it?’

Nick threw down his cards, rose to his feet and followed Dora out, to a chorus of cat calls from the other porters.

Outside it was cold, damp and already growing dark even though it wasn’t yet four o’clock. Nick lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Where’s my necklace? And don’t bother lying to me, I’ve been down to Solomon’s and he says he hasn’t got it. So where is it?’

He stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette. ‘It’s safe.’

‘Why didn’t you pawn it like I asked you to?’

‘Because he offered me next to nothing for it.’

‘So you thought you’d sell it to one of your mates instead?’

He didn’t meet her eye. ‘What do you care? You got the money for your books, didn’t you? More than old Solomon would have given you.’

‘That’s not the point. You knew what it meant to me, and you knew I’d want it back. How am I supposed to get it if you sold it?’

‘Who said I sold it?’

‘Don’t be clever with me, Nick Riley. I don’t want to hear any of your lies.’ Dora stared at his rigid profile. He
couldn’t even look her in the eye. ‘You really don’t care, do you? You knew how much that necklace meant to me, and you just handed it over to any old Tom, Dick or Harry,’ she raged.

‘I got you the money, didn’t I?’ he growled.

‘So you say. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d sold it and kept some for yourself!’

He turned slowly to look at her. ‘Are you calling me a thief?’

Anyone else might have been put off by his icy anger, but Dora was too furious to care.

‘I wouldn’t put anything past you, Nick Riley. I was wrong about you, wasn’t I? Everyone said you weren’t to be trusted, but I didn’t believe them. I thought you wouldn’t let me down—’

There was a jingling sound at her feet. Dora looked down. The hamsa lay glinting in a dirty puddle of water.

‘I do know what it meant to you,’ Nick said gruffly. ‘Why else do you think I kept hold of it?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘No, you don’t, do you? Looks like I was wrong about you, too.’ As his eyes met hers, Dora caught the flash of hurt.

‘Nick . . .’ she began to say, but he was already walking back towards the porters’ lodge, hands thrust in his pockets, head down.

The first ward allocations went up that night. Dora and the rest of her set gathered eagerly around the noticeboard outside the dining room to find out where they would be spending their first three months as probationers.

‘Not that it really matters,’ Katie O’Hara said, as they all crowded around the list of names. ‘Wherever we are,
all we’ll be doing is cleaning. Junior pros get all the dirty jobs no one else wants to do.’

‘I don’t care so long as I don’t get Female Chronics,’ Millie whispered, her hands clasped together in fervent prayer. Female Chronics was presided over by Sister Hyde, the sister Millie had soaked with enema solution.

‘I don’t care where I am, so long as I’m not teamed up with Lane,’ Dora said.

‘It’s all right, she’s on Gynae with you, Benedict.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Millie sighed. ‘I wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off with Sister Hyde?’

‘Where am I?’ Dora craned her neck to look.

‘Let’s have a look . . . stop shoving, you lot!’ Katie ran her finger down the list. ‘Ah, here we are. Doyle, Dora . . . Blake. That’s Male Orthopaedics. That’s Bridget’s ward!’ She laughed. ‘Good luck, Doyle. You’ll need it, being ordered about by my big sister for the next three months.’

‘I won’t be the only one,’ Dora said. ‘Look who’s down for Blake with me.’

She could hardly stop herself from smiling as she watched Katie peer at the list, her expression changing from puzzlement to complete horror.

‘No!’ She shook her head. ‘There must be a mistake. I can’t be going to Blake . . . I can’t be. Lord, Bridget’s going to love that,’ she sighed.

BLAKE, THE MALE
Orthopaedic ward, was as cavernous as a cathedral, with high, echoing ceilings and tall windows on either side. A strong smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

Beds lined the walls, about thirty in total, stretching the length of the ward. Nurses darted to and fro, some in the striped uniforms of students, one or two in the royal blue of staff nurses. Dora wondered if she would ever be that efficient or confident. She certainly didn’t feel like it at that moment.

Down the centre of the ward were various cupboards, trolleys and pieces of equipment, with Sister’s desk at the far end.

‘What do we do?’ she whispered to Katie.

‘Go and say hello, I suppose. Oh, God, there’s Bridget. Don’t catch her eye, whatever you do.’

Dora’s legs felt like jelly as she walked down the length of the ward, her stout shoes squeaking on the highly polished linoleum. Katie followed behind, nose stuck in the air, staring straight ahead of her.

Dora could feel the men’s eyes following them speculatively.

‘Aye-aye, a couple of new ones. This should be fun,’ she heard one of them say to another. ‘What do you think?’

‘The dark one’s pretty. I like ’em with a bit of meat on their bones.’

‘Not sure about the ginger one, though. She looks as if she’d put up too much of a fight!’

Sister Blake sat behind her desk in the centre of the ward, surveying her domain. She was the first ward sister Dora had ever met apart from the sisters who had marked her PTS practical. She had heard so many stories about how fierce they could be and how they regularly made nurses’ lives a misery, but Sister Blake looked nice enough.

‘Don’t look so terrified, Nurses. I’m not going to beat you with a stick. Unless you don’t come up to my standards, that is, in which case I might.’ Sister Blake was small and slim with lively brown eyes that sparkled with fun. Dark hair curled out from under her cap, which was fastened with a bow under her pointed chin. ‘That was a joke, by the way,’ she said to Katie, who looked pale enough to faint.

‘Yes, Sister.’ Katie bobbed a small curtsey, which seemed to amuse Sister Blake.

‘Since this is your first day on the wards, you’ll need to know who you’ll be working with. My name is Frances Wallace, but you must always refer to me as Sister or Sister Blake. Then there are two staff nurses on this ward, O’Hara and Martin. Although I don’t suppose I need to tell you that, do I?’ Her brown eyes twinkled as she looked at Katie. who kept her gaze on the floor, too terrified to meet her eye.

‘The staff nurses are the sister’s second-in-command. They are in charge when I am not here, so you must take orders from them.’ Dora heard Katie’s faint groan. ‘Below the staff nurses are the students. These range from seniors, who are in their last year of training, down to pros like yourselves. We have another student starting today. Her name is Pritchard and she is in the set above yours, as I’m sure she will make clear to you.’ Sister smiled. ‘We all
have our own duties to do, but our main concern is the welfare of our patients. So please don’t wait to be asked. If you see a patient who needs help or a job that needs to be done, tell me or one of the staff nurses immediately. Now, are there any questions?’

She looked from one to the other of them. Dora and Katie exchanged sidelong looks and both shook their heads.

‘Goodness, I’ve never seen students so quiet,’ Sister Blake commented. ‘I suppose your first time on the ward can be rather daunting.’

You’re telling me, Dora thought. She hardly dared look round at all the beds. For the first time it struck her these were real people, and she was supposed to care for them.

‘Remember, no one is expecting you to know everything,’ Sister Blake went on. ‘If you have a problem, or you need to know something, please ask. We are here to help you become the best nurses you can be, and you can’t do that unless you learn.’

‘She seems nice,’ Dora said, as she and Katie headed back down the ward to the sluice with their work lists for the day. As Katie had predicted, their chores mainly consisted of washing bedpans and cleaning lavatories.

‘Don’t let appearances fool you,’ Katie replied wisely. ‘Bridget reckons she can be as snappy as the rest of them if things aren’t done her way. Ah, here we are.’ She pushed open the door to the sluice. ‘Welcome to our new home for the next three months. Fat lot we’ll learn in here, washing bedpans!’

The sluice room was freezing. February had brought grey skies and frost, and the wind whistled through the open grating that covered the high window. Pritchard, the other pro, was already at the sink, rinsing out a bedpan under the tap. She was gangly, with buck teeth and spectacles.

‘Thank God you’re here.’ She thrust the bedpan at Dora.
‘You can take over with these while I go and finish the round.’

‘What are we supposed to do with them?’

‘Empty them down that sink, of course, and then wash them out. And be sure you do it properly,’ she added bossily. ‘I’ll be back to take the clean ones out again in a minute.’

‘Listen to her! I bet she was doing all the dirty jobs herself until we came along,’ Katie said, as they unfastened their cuffs and rolled up their sleeves. ‘Now she thinks we’re her slaves.’

‘I reckon we’re everyone’s slaves.’ Dora finished washing the bedpan and turned to face the others piled up beside the door. ‘I suppose we’d better get on with this lot,’ she said dubiously.

Sister Parker had told them all about cleaning and sterilising, but she hadn’t prepared them for how awful the job would be.

‘Jesus, the smell!’ Katie pinched her nose. ‘I think I’m going to be sick!’

‘Just hold your breath.’ Bracing herself, Dora grabbed the first bedpan and swung it at arm’s length towards the big hole in the middle of the sink.

‘I’m going to close my eyes too.’ Katie picked up a bedpan and aimed it towards the sink.

‘Watch it!’ Dora jumped out of the way just in time. ‘Do you think you could keep your eyes open? That nearly went over my shoes.’