The Nightingale Nurses (35 page)

His lip curled. ‘I’m surprised you can remember his name, that’s all.’

‘I can’t help it if I get lonely.’ June lit her cigarette, took a deep drag and regarded him coldly through the rising plume of smoke. ‘To what do we owe this pleasure, anyway? Have you come to check up on me?’

‘I wouldn’t even bother. I’ve come to see Danny.’ He looked around. ‘Where is he?’

‘Out on the yard, sitting on top of that bloody coal bunker, where do you think?’

‘No, he ain’t.’

She looked at him sharply. ‘He must be. He ain’t here, is he?’

‘I can see that!’ Nick’s heart started to hammer against his ribs.

June pulled her dressing gown more tightly around her and went to the back door.

‘Danny?’ she called out to the empty yard. ‘Danny love, where are you?’

Silence. Nick and his mother looked at each other. He could see his own panic reflected in her eyes.

Danny wasn’t safe out on his own. Crowds and traffic scared him, he didn’t know how to cope. Nick tried to shut his mind to the awful visions that crowded into his head.

Behind them, the bedroom door opened and a man appeared looking bleary-eyed, pulling his braces over his shoulders. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

June was already yanking on her shoes. ‘Oh, Norm. My son’s gone missing.’

Nick turned on her, his fear exploding into fury. ‘Oh, you’re worried now, are you? Maybe if you’d thought more about him and less about your fancy man, Danny wouldn’t have run off!’

‘Don’t you have a go at me. Maybe if you hadn’t gone off and left us on our own, he’d still be safe.’

‘You’re his mother, you’re meant to look after him. You couldn’t look after a cat, let alone your own son!’

‘Now listen here,’ Norm stepped forward, ‘don’t you speak to your mother like that!’

Nick turned on him. ‘And what are you going to do about it?’ he snarled.

The man took one look into Nick’s blazing eyes and backed off straight away. ‘All right, mate, calm down,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, boy.’

‘I ain’t your mate,’ Nick said. ‘And I certainly ain’t no one’s boy.’

‘Belt up, you two. What are we going to do?’ June asked.

Nick turned to look at her. She suddenly looked very old, her face creased with fear. But he felt no pity for her. She’d wished both her sons dead too many times.

‘N-Nick?’

Nick swung round. His brother stood in the back doorway. ‘Blimey, Danny, you gave us a fright, going off like that.’

June turned on him. ‘Where were you, you little sod?’

‘I was h-hiding.’ Danny’s eyes were fearful.

‘Oh, yeah? Who from?’ Nick flicked a hostile glance at Norm.

‘Don’t look at me, I ain’t touched him!’ Norm protested.

‘You’d better not have,’ Nick growled.

Norm shook his head. ‘Stuff this,’ he muttered. ‘I’m off.’

‘Norm, don’t go. Wait!’ June pleaded. He sent her a contemptuous look.

‘You ain’t worth it, love.’

‘Norm!’

But he was already gone, slamming the door behind him.

June faced Nick. ‘Now see what you’ve done!’ she accused. ‘We had a good thing going, him and me. But you had to go and ruin it, didn’t you?’

But Nick wasn’t listening. All his attention was fixed on his brother.

‘Go and put some clothes on while I talk to Dan,’ he said to his mother.

‘Don’t you tell me what to do in my own house!’

‘It’s my house, in case you’ve forgotten. I pay the rent.’

June opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. Snatching up her cigarette packet, she stormed out, slamming the door.

Nick ruffled Danny’s hair. ‘How about we go and get some chips, eh? I dunno about you, but I’m starving.’

They went down to the fish and chip shop, Nick bought them both saveloy and chips and they sat on the kerb to eat them.

‘Where did you run off to?’ Nick carefully unwrapped the newspaper around his brother’s food and handed it to him.

‘I w-went for a walk. B-By the c-canal.’

Nick whipped round to look at him, all his senses instantly sharpened. ‘The canal? Blimey, Danny, how many times have I told you you’re not to go down there by yourself? It’s not safe on that path, you could slip in or anything . . .’ He saw the panic on his brother’s face and forced himself to calm down. ‘I’m sorry, mate, I didn’t mean to shout. But I worry about you, see? If anything happened to you . . .’

If anything happened to Danny he would never, ever forgive himself.

‘Who were you hiding from anyway?’ He tried to keep his voice casual as he stared across the street at a rag and bone man trundling past, his wagon piled high with old bits of scrap metal.

Danny stared ahead of him. ‘I mustn’t say anything.’

‘Mustn’t say anything about what? You can tell me, Dan. I’m your big brother. We don’t have any secrets, do we?’ He nudged him, but Danny jerked away.

‘She said she’d get her brothers on me if I told,’ he said.

Nick stopped, a chip halfway to his mouth. ‘Who told you that?’ Danny fell very quiet, his mouth closing like a trap. ‘Do you mean Ruby?’ Nick saw the blush creeping up his brother’s neck. ‘What exactly did she say, Danny?’

‘I c-can’t tell you,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s a s-secret. I sh-shouldn’t have been listening, but I c-couldn’t help it. I was just sitting there when her and her m-mum were talking.’

‘What were they talking about?’

‘The b-baby.’

Nick drew in a deep breath. ‘And what did they say about the baby?’

‘I c-can’t!’ Danny turned anguished eyes to meet Nick’s. ‘She said you’d b-be angry with me if you f-found out.’

‘You know I’d never get angry with you, Danny boy.’

‘D-Dennis and Frank would. Sh-she said she’d set them on m-me.’

‘Is that right?’ Nick’s jaw tightened. ‘Don’t you worry about Dennis and Frank, mate. You leave them to me,’ he said grimly. ‘Now just tell me what you heard. Right from the beginning.’

HELEN SAT AT
the back of the classroom, lost in her thoughts. It wasn’t like her to daydream through a lecture, but today she could only stare out of the window, her pen still in her hand.

Outside the summer was finally surrendering to autumn, which had blown in with a gusty wind that had almost stripped the trees of their burnished leaves overnight. Mr Hopkins was in the courtyard struggling with a wheelbarrow and shovel, trying to pick up the drifts. But every time he filled the barrow another gust of wind picked them up in a mini-whirlwind and tossed them through the air again.

Helen smiled to herself. Poor Mr Hopkins, he was fighting a losing battle but he refused to give up. She knew how he felt.

She stared at the clock. Was there still half an hour to go? She wished she hadn’t listened to Charlie and come to the lecture. She would far rather be with him.

A whole week had passed since their wedding. And with every passing day, Helen began to feel as if the doctors had got it wrong. It made her smile to see the indignation on Mr Latimer’s face every time he did his rounds. He seemed to take it as a personal affront that Charlie had dared to live beyond his prediction.

Helen knew Charlie was fighting back. She could feel him getting stronger every day. Only once had he woken up from one of his long sleeps and not known who she was, and that was just for a minute or two. And when she held his hand she could feel his fingers curling around hers.

She refused to listen to her brother William when he took her to one side and tried to explain how the disease would slowly claim Charlie.

‘But he’s getting better,’ she insisted. ‘There must be something else you can try to help him, surely? What about Prontosil, or lumbar puncture? It says in my textbook—’

But William only shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Hel, they won’t do any good, and they’d only cause him more suffering. You wouldn’t want to put him through that, would you?’

‘I told you, he’s improving. He just needs some help to fight it . . .’

But all William had done was look at her in that pitying way that drove her mad with frustration. And Helen had gone back to her books, looking for a new cure, something that might offer some hope. She spent more time researching than on her revision these days.

Sister Judd was even worse. It grated across Helen’s nerves every time she talked in her hushed little voice about making Charlie ‘comfortable’. Helen had used that word herself many times, and never realised how stupid and smug it sounded. She didn’t want Charlie made comfortable, she wanted him made better.

Charlie’s mum and dad had accepted that their son was going to die. Helen could see the raw pain in their eyes as they sat at Charlie’s bedside. Even they frustrated her. Why weren’t they fighting for him like she was, willing him on? Giving up on him felt like a betrayal.

‘We talked for such a long time today,’ she would tell them. ‘Even Nurse Strickland said he was looking brighter . . .’ But like William, all they did was look at her with sympathy.

‘At least he’s comfortable, love,’ his mother would pat her hand and say.

If only Nellie had seen him earlier, Helen thought. When she’d visited him that morning – she had given up completely on any pretence of sleep now, and came straight from her night duty to his bedside – he had stayed awake for nearly an hour. She would have stayed at his bedside talking to him, but lunchtime had come and Charlie had insisted she should go to her afternoon lecture.

‘Your Sister Parker will be on the warpath if you don’t,’ he’d warned.

‘I don’t care.’

‘But your exams are important.’

‘You sound like my mother!’

That made him laugh. When she’d left him he was chatting to Millie. Helen had smiled all the way to her class, knowing he had turned a corner. She couldn’t wait to go back to the ward and see him again. She couldn’t wait to see Dr Latimer’s face the next day as he tried to explain to his medical students how he had managed to get a patient’s prognosis so drastically wrong.

Finally the class was over. Helen quickly gathered up her books and hurried out of the dusty classroom into the fresh air. The sharp wind tugged at her cap, almost pulling it from its pins as she hurried across the courtyard.

She caught up with Mr Hopkins, pushing his wheelbarrow away from the teaching block.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Hopkins,’ she greeted him.

‘Afternoon, Nurse.’ Mr Hopkins set down his barrow and pulled off his cap. The elderly Welshman’s sing-song tone was unusually sombre.

‘Has the
Evening Standard
arrived yet? I want to take a copy up to the ward for Charlie. He likes me to read to him, and I’ve run out of . . .’ She stopped as she saw Millie emerge from the ward block. William was with her. They both seemed to be looking around, searching for something.

As soon as she saw them together, Helen knew. They were looking for her. And she knew why, too.

‘Charlie!’

Millie turned at the sound of her voice and Helen saw her stricken expression. For a second her heart stopped beating in her chest. And then suddenly it was going very fast, as if it would hammer itself out of her throat.

‘Helen, wait!’ She heard William calling her name but she pushed past him and Millie and sprinted through the door to the wards, taking the stairs two at a time. She could hear William and Millie behind her as she ran, her feet pounding along the passageway. The double doors of the Male Medical ward suddenly seemed a long way off, receding from her as she ran towards them. Voices and faces around her were distorted, as if everything was moving in slow motion . . .

William caught her as she reached the doors. His arms folded around her, pinning her, but she struggled against him.

‘Let me go!’ she screamed. ‘I need to see him. I need to see Charlie!’

‘He’s gone, Helen. They’ve taken him away.’

She turned on him blindly. ‘Where? Where have they taken him?’

She saw Millie behind her brother’s shoulder, her head bent, shoulders shaking as she sobbed.

‘I need to see him.’ Helen fought to break free. ‘You’ve made a mistake, Charlie’s getting better, I know he is. Why won’t anyone see that?’

‘Helen, please, don’t do this,’ William pleaded with her, his dark eyes wretched.

‘No! You’ve all given up on him, but I haven’t. I told you, he’s getting stronger every day—’

‘He’s dead, Helen.’

The shock of his words stopped the breath in her throat. She stared into her brother’s face. ‘You shouldn’t have let them take him, not without me. You had no right. Why didn’t you wait for me? Why didn’t he wait . . .’

‘I’m sorry.’ William’s arms cradled her, holding her tightly to him. ‘Oh, Helen, I’m so, so sorry.’

She submitted rigidly to his embrace, her own arms by her sides, refusing to be comforted. She heard William’s voice crooning in her ear, telling her over and over again that he was sorry, and Millie’s muffled sobbing. But still she told herself they’d got it wrong, that there must be a mistake.

Charlie wouldn’t go without her. Not without saying goodbye.

KATHLEEN FOX SCARCELY
knew what to make of the young woman sitting opposite her.

She had expected Helen Dawson to be a sobbing, trembling ball of grief. It was less than four hours since her husband had died, and Sister Judd had reported how hysterical Helen had been, flinging herself at the doors, her screams echoing around the hospital corridors.

‘That poor, poor girl,’ she had whispered. ‘I’m sorry, Matron, I know we should be used to death after all these years but this has really affected us all. We got to know and like Charlie – Mr Dawson – you see. And as for that poor girl – well, I simply can’t imagine how she must be feeling. I think if she could have died herself at that moment, she would have.’

But the girl who sat before Matron was neither hysterical nor trembling. If anything she was unnaturally composed, smartly turned out in her uniform as usual, not a hairpin out of place. Only the way she kept twisting that ring of silver paper on her finger betrayed her inner agitation.

But it was as if all the life had gone out of her. Her cheeks were pale and sunken and she stared back at Kathleen with dead brown eyes. She wondered if the dose of sedative her brother had given Helen to make her sleep hadn’t yet worn off.