The Nightingale Nurses (38 page)

‘Look, I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but we can make things right again,’ she said eagerly.

‘It’s too late, Ruby.’

‘Why? Why is it too late? We’ve been happy, ain’t we? And I’ve been a good wife to you. You’ve got to admit that, ain’t you?’ He tried to move past her but she stepped into his path. ‘I’m not expecting miracles, but if we give it time we can make our marriage work. All I’m asking for is another chance. Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t you think?’ She faced him, her eyes wide with appeal. ‘Please, Nick? Give me a chance to prove I can be the wife you want?’

She looked so vulnerable, so full of childish hope, that Nick felt himself weaken.

‘I don’t want you any more, Ruby,’ he said.

‘You don’t mean that!’

She made a wild grab for his suitcase. He fended her off and suddenly she was attacking him, kicking, pummelling him with her fists and yanking at his hair. Nick dropped the suitcase and disentangled himself from her, pushing her back on the bed.

She lay there, breathing hard, staring up at him with hostile eyes.

‘You bastard! I’ll go to the police,’ she threatened, brushing her disordered hair off her face. ‘I’ll tell them you attacked me.’

‘If that’s what you want.’ Nick picked up his suitcase. ‘I’ll be staying at my mate Harry’s, if they want to come and arrest me.’

‘You mean, you’re not going to
her
?’

Nick stopped dead, still facing the door. ‘I dunno who you’re talking about,’ he said flatly.

‘Now who’s the liar?’ Ruby laughed bitterly. ‘Do you honestly think I didn’t know about you and Dora Doyle?’ Her voice dripped ice as she said the name. ‘I’ve seen the way you look at her, panting after her like a bloody dog on heat. Although God knows why you’d want to make a fool of yourself over someone like her,’ she mocked. ‘Ugly Dora, dumpy little carrot top—’

‘Don’t you dare say that about her. She’s been a good friend to you.’

‘Some friend!’ Ruby sneered. ‘What kind of a friend sneaks around trying to steal someone’s husband?’

‘You can’t steal something that belonged to you in the first place!’ Nick shot back angrily. ‘I love Dora, I always have. And I’ll tell you something else. I would have run off with her on the morning of our wedding, baby or no baby, if only she’d said the word. But she wouldn’t let me. She said I had to stay, do the right thing. She said I couldn’t let you down, because you needed me. God help me, I wish I’d never done the right thing now!’

‘Go, then. Go to her, if she’s so bloody perfect!’ Ruby spat.

‘She might not be perfect, but at least she doesn’t lie to me.’

‘That’s what you think.’

Nick paused, his hand on the doorknob. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘That made you take notice, didn’t it?’ A slow smile spread across Ruby’s face. ‘Before you walk out of the door into the arms of Saint Dora, I reckon there are a couple of things you ought to know . . .’

HELEN WAS DOWN
on her hands and knees, scrubbing the wheels on the bed with a stiff brush and carbolic mixture. Since breakfast finished at seven, she and the other nurses had been cleaning. Even though it was tackled every day by the probationers and the ward maid, every week the ward had to undergo a thorough clean; beds were pulled into the middle, the floor was swept and polished, lampshades were taken down and washed in soapy water, lockers were turned out and damp dusted, windows were washed and paintwork scrubbed. Even the springs on the beds were polished and the wheels cleaned.

Sister Blake walked up and down the ward supervising. Her lively brown gaze missed nothing.

‘Watch out for those hidden corners, please . . . Make sure you dry inside the lockers thoroughly before you put the patients’ things away, we don’t want their belongings ruined . . . No, no, Nurse, use a clean duster, not that old rag.’

She reached Helen and stopped for a moment, watching her. ‘Good gracious, Nurse,’ she said finally. ‘You’ll wear those wheels away if you scrub them any harder!’

‘I’m sorry, Sister.’ Helen looked up in dismay. ‘Have I done it wrong? I’ll do them again—’

‘Don’t be silly, Nurse, they are spotless. But you don’t have to put quite so much elbow grease into it,’ said Sister. ‘Save some energy for looking after the patients.’

‘Now that’s something you don’t hear very often, a sister telling a student not to work so hard!’ Brenda Bevan commented wryly, as she went past with an armful of vases. ‘I bet you wouldn’t hear O’Hara saying it.’

Brenda scowled at Staff Nurse O’Hara, who was watching a hapless first-year dusting a window ledge for the third time. She had the same dark Irish colouring as her younger sister Katie, but that was where the similarity ended. While Katie O’Hara was lively and full of mischief, Bridget looked as if she’d never cracked a smile in her life.

Helen plunged her hand into the bowl of scalding carbolic-scented water, and went on scrubbing. She didn’t want to admit it to Brenda Bevan, but she was grateful for the mindless hard graft. If she was lucky, she could exhaust herself enough that she fell into a deep sleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

After the cleaning came the bedpan round. As Helen handed one of the young men a bottle, he gave her a cheeky wink and said, ‘I don’t suppose you could give me a hand, could you, Nurse?’

It was a request the nurses heard several times a day, especially on Male Orthopaedics where the patients were generally young and more bored than poorly. Helen was just about to smile sweetly and offer to fetch the rat-tooth forceps when the man in the next bed hissed, ‘Have some respect, can’t you? That’s the young nurse that lost her husband!’

‘I didn’t know, did I?’ The young man whispered back. ‘She looked like a normal girl to me.’

I am normal, Helen wanted to scream as she walked away. She wished people wouldn’t keep tiptoeing around her. She could feel the whispers and sympathetic stares following her wherever she went: in the ward, the dining room, the nurses’ home, even when she was walking down the passageways. She knew they meant well and were only trying to be kind, but she was sick of it. She half wished that Staff Nurse O’Hara would take her to task for something, so at least she could feel that her life was normal. But even she avoided talking to Helen if she could.

Only that morning, the two pros had stopped laughing abruptly as she walked into the kitchen.

‘What’s the joke?’ Helen had asked.

‘Nothing,’ one of them mumbled, as they exchanged embarrassed looks. The awkward silence had gone on until she walked out again, when she heard one of them whisper, ‘Oh, God, I wish they hadn’t put her on this ward. I never know what to say to her, do you?’

‘It’s awful, isn’t it?’ the other agreed. ‘I was looking forward to Male Orthopaedics, but you don’t feel as if you can have fun with her around.’

At least there was one person on the ward who treated her normally.

‘Good morning, Mr Forster,’ she greeted her favourite patient, pulling the screens around his bed. ‘Are you ready for your bottle?’

‘Go away.’

Marcus Forster glared at Helen from his traction prison. The other nurses nicknamed him the Mad Professor, and he was certainly odd-looking – over six feet tall, painfully thin, with a shock of light brown curls and disarming dark brown eyes. He was nineteen years old and eccentrically brilliant. He spoke four languages, translated Ancient Greek for amusement, and was studying physics at Cambridge. In fact, he had been trying to disprove a theory about gravity when he fractured his femur.

Now all his formidable intelligence was no use to him at all, as he was stuck in a Hodgsen Splint. This consisted of an iron frame over the bed, to which Mr Forster was attached by a complex series of pulleys and hooks. The lower end of the bed was raised on blocks, and a cover over his upper torso kept his arms firmly pinned to his sides.

Only his head was visible and unencumbered. And as Helen approached with his bottle, his face turned bright red.

‘I don’t need it,’ he mumbled.

‘Come along, Mr Forster. If you don’t use it now you’ll only be wanting it in ten minutes’ time. And we can’t be running up and down the ward with bedpans and bottles all day, can we?’

‘I don’t see what else you have to do.’

‘You’d be surprised. Now let me help you . . .’

‘No! I can manage.’

It was all she could do not to smile as she looked down at him, fastened securely into the splint, his legs raised above his head. ‘Are you sure about that, Mr Forster? I know you’re the one with the science degree, but from where I’m standing it looks like a physical impossibility.’ His face turned a deeper shade of puce. ‘Look, I can assure you it’s no more embarrassing for me than combing your hair.’

‘Bully for you. You’re not the one lying here.’ He turned his face away. ‘You’d better get on with it, I suppose,’ he sighed.

As she pulled back the screens afterwards, he said, ‘Why do the other nurses keep looking at you?’

‘Do they? I hadn’t noticed.’

‘I have. And they’re whispering about you, too.’

Helen looked at him. If it had been anyone else, she might have thought they were being rude. But Marcus Forster’s frankness disarmed her. ‘Perhaps they have nothing better to do?’

He considered it for a moment, as if he was tackling a difficult mathematical problem. ‘I don’t think so,’ he concluded. ‘Less than five minutes ago you stated you have better things to do than wait for me. Ipso facto, those other nurses must have something better to do too. Which leads me to believe there is something about you they find particularly interesting.’ He regarded her consideringly. ‘Do you think it’s because your husband is dead?’

‘I—’ Helen stared at him, taken aback. It was the first time anyone had asked her a question about Charlie.

But before she could answer, Staff Nurse O’Hara swept in. ‘That’s enough of that,’ she said briskly. ‘Nurse Dawson doesn’t want to answer those kind of questions, Mr Forster.’

She turned to Helen, a steely brightness in her eyes. ‘Go and get rid of that bottle, Nurse, if Mr Forster has finished with it?’

‘Yes, Staff.’ Helen rushed off, pleased to escape. For once she didn’t find Mr Forster quite so entertaining.

She came off duty at nine o’clock and went straight back to the nurses’ home, intending to get on with her studying. As she walked up the gravel drive, she noticed a car parked outside.

It was most unusual. Visitors seldom came to the nurses’ home, mainly because guests were not allowed beyond the front step. As she drew alongside, Helen noticed a middle-aged man sitting behind the wheel, a woman at his side. They stared ahead of them, neither of them speaking, their faces drawn and sombre.

Helen’s stomach plunged. If a nurse’s parents came to the home, it usually meant bad news.

Sure enough, inside the home was an air of suppressed excitement. Students from Helen’s set, who had spent the past three years in their rooms away from Sister Sutton’s prying eyes, suddenly gathered in the sitting room, occupying the couches and staring out of the window.

Sister Sutton bustled up and down the passageway, Sparky at her heels, trying to regain order.

‘Really, Nurses, your exams are four weeks away,’ she chided. ‘I’m sure you could find something more worthwhile to do with your time than gawping out of a window!’

Helen met Brenda Bevan as she came down the stairs.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s happening, do you know?’

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Brenda’s eyes were round with dismay. ‘Hollins has been dismissed!’

‘Dismissed?’ Helen stared at her, scarcely able to take in what she was hearing. ‘I don’t understand . . .’

‘Apparently she’s been having an affair with a married man!’ Brenda’s face was eager. ‘Can you imagine? None of us had any idea, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Helen had a sudden picture in her mind of Amy’s wistful expression that night in the ward kitchen. ‘How did they find out?’

‘We’ve heard his wife discovered it and went to see Matron. Carson was working with Hollins on Casualty. She says Miss Hanley came storming in and dragged her straight out. No one saw her again.’ Brenda shuddered. ‘Can you imagine what Matron must have said to her? It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Upstairs packing, I think.’

‘Is anyone with her?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’ Brenda frowned as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. ‘So who do you think it is?’

‘Who?’

‘Her mystery married man, of course! Carson’s certain it must be someone at the hospital, but I don’t think even Hollins would take a risk like that . . .’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t really care,’ Helen cut her off flatly. ‘And I think it’s pretty shabby that you lot would just stand by gossiping about her when she needs you,’ she added, turning to face the others who were crowded around the bay window. ‘I thought she was your friend?’

‘Well, I—’ Brenda’s mouth opened and closed again.

Just then Amy came down the stairs, bumping her suitcase behind her. The other girls watched her struggling with her luggage, no one offering to help. It was as if Amy had become somehow untouchable.

Helen felt for her. She knew what it was like to be the girl everyone was talking about, the girl no one spoke to.

She stepped forward. ‘Here, let me help you with that.’

She took hold of one end of the suitcase. Amy lifted her head briefly, long enough for Helen to see her red-rimmed eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Together, they carried the suitcase out to the car. As soon as she appeared, Amy’s father got out and opened up the boot. He didn’t look at his daughter as he loaded her suitcase inside, then slammed the boot shut, then opened the rear door for her. Amy didn’t look at him either, her head hung in shame as she climbed inside.

Helen stood and watched until the car was out of sight. She waved, but Amy Hollins didn’t look back.

ROSE DOYLE WAS
giving the front step a good going over with red Cardinal polish when Dora came home to Griffin Street.

‘All right, Mum?’ she said.