The Angels of Lovely Lane (50 page)

‘Yes. Go away,’ said Dana gently, turning on to her side to avoid Pammy’s gaze. She heard the door click closed, and then, raising her head, realized that at last she was alone with her secret.

Now, in the dark corridor, from which the excited whispers of the returning girls had long since departed, she hovered outside Pammy’s door, the note in her hand. She looked at it long and hard. She was taking a risk.

*

It was after eleven o’clock, but Pammy was awake. She heard Dana’s stealthy steps on the stairs, but she didn’t shout out. She had known this was coming, she just hadn’t known it was tonight. Pammy, Victoria and Beth had met for coffee in the greasy spoon only last week, and discussed what to do about Dana.

She had talked far too much lately about the fact that she would have to return to Ireland at the end of her training and probably marry a man who was a thug, an oaf and a heartless beast. ‘For heaven’s sake, why?’ Victoria had asked the first time Dana had said it.

‘Because that’s my lot in life. I’m Irish and it’s what my family expects. And sure, why would any man want me?’

They all imagined they had secrets of their own, but Pammy thought, as she stared at the door, no one did, not really. Victoria and Beth had confided in her about the letter Beth had found and Dana’s broken heart. It took her a full five minutes to calm her own hurt that Dana hadn’t told her.

‘I knew something must have gone wrong that night, but she never said a word about it and I didn’t like to ask. Didn’t she trust me, or what?’ she asked Victoria with tears in her eyes.

‘Of course she trusts you. I was just in on it because, well, I have a secret too, but I wanted to tell you all together. Anyway, this isn’t about me. It’s about Dana. Girls, she read a letter from her daddy in Ireland to me yesterday. I used to reckon no one knew more about misguided fathers than I do, but I can promise you, this was on an entirely different level. If we don’t rescue Dana from the fate which is surely awaiting her, well, I for one shan’t be able to live with myself. She’ll be driven back to Ireland to marry a pig of a man for no other reason than guilt and feeling sorry for her mammy, and we have to do something about it. So I’ve a plan.’

The girls had leant in over the table, eyes wide open and ready to hear Victoria’s idea. You are quite bossy yourself, Victoria, thought Beth. But it remained a thought. Saving Dana was far more important.

Pammy fancied she could hear Dana’s heartbeat. She listened for her breathing and looked towards the door. In a voice too weak to reach Dana and swallowed by the thickness of the gloom, she whispered, ‘Please don’t let her down. Please be there, please.’

Pammy knew the sound of every stair. The second to the bottom had a creak that could not be avoided. She counted the steps and right on cue, the last but one creaked. Silence fell. She’s nearly there, thought Pammy. Then, she heard stealthy footsteps pass by outside, along the grass border and under her window. She had made it. She was free. Dana was on her way.

Pammy let out the long breath that she hadn’t realized she was holding and prayed hard for her friend.

Dana could hear her heart beating as she approached the rear of the theatre block. The note was in her pocket, crumpled and faded by many rereadings. At first, she had ignored it. Pretended to Victoria that she didn’t care, but there was no fooling Victoria.

‘Look, Dana, Teddy has asked me to pass you this,’ she had said. Dana was in her room trying to study for a ward assessment the following morning. Sister Ryan was due to arrive at ten thirty and assess Dana as she removed sutures and re-dressed an appendicectomy wound. As Dana read the letter, the words just swam in front of her and refused to sink in.

‘Victoria?’ Dana raised her head. ‘What have you done? Have you told him about Celia?’

‘Yes, I have. I’m sorry to have interfered, but I just didn’t think it was fair on him – on either of you – because after all, neither of you has done anything wrong. It was all down to that beastly Celia Forsyth. Anyway, really, Dana, does it matter who plays Cupid here? I’ll leave it all to you now, but he’s given you a telephone number. The ball’s in your court.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ said Dana, jumping up to close her bedroom door. ‘You are going to sit here and go over every word with me.’ Her eyes were alight. For the first time in months, she felt alive.

*

Dana kept to the bushes and away from the lamp-posts as she hurried along the same route she used every day. Tonight it felt different. Her heart was beating and her skin prickled as she thought she heard footsteps behind her. She stopped and looked back; there was no one.

She walked faster and there they were again, but still she could see nothing. As she reached the lights at the back gates of the hospital, she saw a dark figure sprint away in the direction of the Old Dock Road and she gave a sigh of relief. She did not have to wait for more than a second. She heard a set of footsteps running down a flight of stairs and then, in a flash, he was standing in front of her.

‘Well, what do you know? She came!’ He pretended to shout to the sky and threw his arms up in the air. ‘I have been on duty since Monday morning and I haven’t left since. Liverpool is going crazy. We have done two caesarean sections up there in the past two hours. I’m not off again until Friday night. I’ve got matchsticks holding my eyelids up.’

He plunged his hands into the pockets of his white coat. ‘Look, I’m off on Saturday and it’s the doctors’ social. I wanted to ask you, but I wanted to ask you to your face. Would you come with me, as my guest? Please. I have no idea why that wretched girl didn’t give you the note telling you I wouldn’t be here last time, but I can promise you, when I see her next, she will have to come up with a good explanation.’

It was as though a breeze had swept the air away and Dana struggled to breathe. He wanted her to go to the social with him. It was her very first dance in Liverpool and the best-looking doctor at the hospital wanted her to go with him. She blinked in the strong light at the bottom of the theatre-block steps. Much to her embarrassment, she was speechless.

‘And before you say no, I’m sorry for asking you to risk getting into trouble by coming out at night again. It’s just that if I had arranged to meet you during the day, I would probably have been called away and well, I just didn’t want to miss you, not again. That would have been unbearable. At least I know I am stuck here on receiving ward and theatre all night.’

He grinned his ridiculous grin. It was a grin from a man who had a good heart and nothing to hide, and Dana’s own heart melted away. ‘Well, I wasn’t planning on going,’ she said.

‘That wouldn’t have anything to do with you once thinking Victoria and I were an item, would it? When in fact she and my brother are smitten with each other.’

‘How dare you?’ she spluttered. ‘Where would you get that idea, and why would I care in any case?’

He took a step backwards in the face of her mock outrage. They both knew it wasn’t real. ‘Has she told you yet? They’re engaged. He’s coming to the dance.’

Now Dana really was speechless.

She took in his flopping fringe and his boyish grin. His shirt collar was slightly crumpled under his white coat and for a fleeting moment the image of Patrick came into her mind. She let her breath escape. This man was not Patrick, she must not concern herself on that score. She must relax. This man was a doctor, healing and saving lives, and had kindness and mischief shining out of his eyes. He was not Patrick.

‘I would love to come,’ she said and, embarrassed, looked down at her feet. She felt his finger slip under her chin as he slowly tilted her face upwards and made her look at him.

‘Well, in that case, roll on Saturday.’

He kissed her gently and she was lost, until they both heard the sound of a voice shouting, ‘Dr Davenport, wanted in theatre’ through the doors.

‘I’ll pick you up at half past seven in Lovely Lane,’ he said. ‘Under the lamp-post, where I first found you,’ and then he was gone.

Dana walked back through the hospital grounds and felt as though she were flying. Gone was the cold night breeze which had made her shiver on her way. She had a precious, wonderful secret and it kept her warm.

What Dana didn’t know was that in St Angelus, everyone and no one had a secret to hold.

Pammy was in tears. ‘How did that happen?’ she wailed as she threw the dress she had been trying on on to the floor.

‘Well, because you’ve lost so much weight, queen,’ said Maisie, with a worried frown on her face. ‘They work you too hard at that hospital.’

Pammy wasn’t listening. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, in tears.

‘Come on, love, we don’t cry about silly things like that,’ said Maisie. ‘No one has died.’

Pammy felt stupid. She knew the true meaning of those words. Sometimes a neighbour would pop in to have a cuppa with Maisie and if they thought no one was listening, they would start talking about the war and Pammy knew that within minutes they would be in floods of tears, crying over someone they once knew or loved, or both.

‘The new lady in number ten has a sewing machine. I’ll pin the dress now and run down and borrow it. It will take me an hour at the most.’

‘What if she’s not in?’ Pammy’s wail had subsided to a whimper.

‘Oh, that’s not a problem. She keeps it out on the kitchen table. If she’s not there, I’ll just help myself.’

Nothing had changed in Arthur Street for as long as anyone could remember. Back doors were still unlocked and it would remain that way until the new houses and estates were built and the fabric of the dockside community fractured and split apart. Families and relatives who had lived side by side for generations would become isolated and confused, struggling to find a new way to live, to rear children without generations of knowledge, values and expertise at hand.

‘I’ve hung Dana’s dress up on a hanger and I’ve run an old sheet up into a bag to carry them both back to Lovely Lane. Don’t you drop them now. And I’ve turned the hem up on Beth’s skirt. That’s in the bag too.’

Maisie had become chief dressmaker in preparation for the dance. The only one of the girls who hadn’t needed her help was Victoria, and she had come up trumps in her own way.

‘Would this dress and cloak be any use, Mrs Tanner?’ she had asked. The cloak was full length and made of the most exquisite black velvet. The dress was covered in seed pearls.

Maisie gasped. ‘Victoria, I can’t cut up good quality clothes like that. Are you out of your mind, love?’

‘Oh, yes you can,’ said Victoria. ‘Look, Mrs Tanner, I have kept all Mummy’s dresses and I have as many as you could shake a stick at at Aunt Minnie’s. This dress with the seed pearls was my great-grandmother’s. I’m never going to wear it. Look, it is so old-fashioned.’ Maisie could barely speak. She ran the dress though her fingers. ‘Pammy tells me you’re a magician with a needle, so please, turn them into something nice for Pammy and Dana.’

Maisie had worked her magic. Not only had she been able to make two beautiful dresses, but Dana also had a cape to match and Pammy a bolero. Dana preferred the velvet and the original cloak had so many folds there was enough for both dress and cape, with some left over for the bolero. The seed pearl dress was converted for Pammy.

Victoria was to wear a dress of stunning emerald green silk and Maisie had taken up, by over nine inches, a full-length black crepe skirt which Beth wanted to wear with a black silk blouse Victoria was lending her. The excitement was growing as the dance approached.

‘Mam, could you do something with this?’ Pammy took out a dress she had carefully rolled in her basket.

‘Who does that belong to?’ asked Maisie, looking confused. ‘It’s from Goldsmiths. They charge an arm and a leg, they do.’ She was checking out the seams. ‘Look at that beautiful stitching, Pammy.’

‘Mam, I want you to undo it.’

‘What? I can’t do that. Are you out of your mind, our Pammy?’

‘Mam, please, just do as I say. Don’t unpick the seams completely; leave it so that each seam is held by a half thread with no close at the ends.’

‘Pammy, what are you up to?’

‘I’ll tell you, Mam, but not until after. But I promise, the girls will love you if you do this for me.’

And, so, with a heavy heart, Maisie unpicked the most beautiful stitching she had ever seen.

Victoria still had told no one any details about Roland. Dana had decided to take matters into her own hands, and had called a meeting in the greasy spoon with Beth and Pammy to reveal and discuss.

‘Well I never,’ said Pammy. ‘When is she going to tell us? We need to buy her a present and get her a card. Something for her bottom drawer.’

‘What in God’s name do we buy for an engagement present for the daughter of a lord?’ asked Dana. ‘Anyway, I think we should do something for them at the dance. Teddy told me.’

‘Ooh, get you. Teddy told you, did he now,’ they all chorused playfully.

Dana blushed. ‘Yes, he did. Shut up, will you all. He also told me they have to wait until a respectable time has passed after the funeral before it is announced officially in
The Times
or whatever people like them do.’

‘Poor Victoria,’ said Pammy. ‘She must be heartbroken still, but you wouldn’t know it. If it was me and me da had died, I would have cried my leg off by now. It’s her breeding, you know, or so me mam says. She hides it well.’

‘There isn’t anything we can do,’ said Beth. ‘We have to wait until the day when Victoria wants to tell us about her and Roland being engaged.’

*

That evening, Pammy called her own meeting in the greasy spoon. This time everyone was invited.

Beth, Victoria and Dana arrived first and had already had their tea, when Pammy sat down next to them. ‘Don’t you just hate these national issue green cups and saucers?’ She leant forward to sip the tea out of her overflowing cup.

‘Is that why you have called a meeting?’ asked Beth, her voice incredulous.

‘No, of course not. Listen, I’ve just been to the pharmacy to have a word. I’ve a plan to get Celia back. Who’s with me?’