The Nightingale Nurses (40 page)

Helen looked away, embarrassed by the unexpected praise. Mrs Forster went on looking at her, that strange brown gaze as direct as her son’s.

‘I was a nurse myself, you see, so I know how difficult it can be when you have a patient as demanding as Marcus,’ she said. ‘My son tells me you’re in your third year?’ Helen nodded. ‘When are you taking your State Finals?’

‘In two weeks.’

‘I expect you’re all prepared for them?’

‘Yes.’ She often took comfort in sitting up all night with her textbooks, when sleep eluded her.

‘That must be very difficult for you, since the death of your husband. I’m sorry, do forgive me,’ Mrs Forster added hurriedly, seeing the dismay on Helen’s face. ‘That’s the problem with having a son like mine, I’m afraid. I’ve become as forthright as he is!’

‘No, no, it’s quite all right,’ Helen muttered. Her eyes darted here and there, looking for a way to escape. ‘But if you’ll excuse me, I have jobs to do . . .’

‘Oh dear, I’ve made you uncomfortable, haven’t I?’ Mrs Forster regarded her sympathetically. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. I was the same when my husband died, so I know what it’s like. You’re struggling through each day, trying to keep a lid on your emotions and pretend life is normal. The last thing you need is a stranger blundering in and making you feel worse. Isn’t that right?’

But I am normal, Helen wanted to shout. Look at me. I get up every morning and I wash and dress myself and report for duty and do everything that’s asked of me. What could be more normal than that?

Why did everyone keep insisting that there was something wrong with her, that she was grieving? She had bidden goodbye to her grief at Charlie’s graveside. Now she had to get on with life.

She flinched as Mrs Forster patted her arm. ‘Look, I know it’s probably of small comfort at the moment, but time is a great healer, my dear.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Forster, but I really don’t need to be healed,’ Helen replied sharply. ‘I can assure you there is nothing wrong with me. Now if you’ll excuse me –’

She backed away, and collided with Sister Blake who was coming in the other direction.

‘Oops, watch out, Nurse Dawson!’ Her smile vanished when she looked at Helen’s face. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, Sister.’ Helen fought to keep a tremor from her voice. ‘I’m sorry, I – I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘And where are you going, Nurse?’ Sister Blake enquired patiently.

Helen’s face coloured. ‘I’m not sure, Sister.’

‘In that case, why don’t you go and help Nurse Patrick with the dressings?’ she suggested kindly. ‘She hasn’t done them before, and I’m afraid she’s about to get herself in rather a muddle without someone to show her.’

Helen hurried off, relieved to have a purpose. Showing the pro how to remove and dispose of a used dressing, clean a wound and apply a new one took up all her concentration so she didn’t have the time to ponder Mrs Forster’s comments.

At five Sister Blake retired to her sitting room for a cup of tea. Several of the other nurses went into their kitchen to put the kettle on, leaving Helen alone on the ward. She went around each bed, checking pulleys and traction tension, tightening drawsheets, smoothing mackintoshes and turning down sheets to an exact fifteen inches.

‘Excuse me, Nurse. Are you busy?’ Mr Casey said, as she checked the blocks under the foot of his bed.

Helen fixed a bright smile on her face. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Casey?’

‘I wondered if you could do me a favour?’

‘If I can.’

‘Have a look in the paper, will you? The Speedway was on last night, and I want to know the result.’

‘The Speedway?’ Helen heard herself say faintly.

‘Yes, I like a bit of racing. Not that I get to see it much these days,’ Mr Casey said ruefully. ‘I don’t suppose you know much about the Speedway, do you, Nurse?’

‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. My husband –’ Helen took a deep breath and picked up the Sunday newspaper. ‘The results are at the back, aren’t they?’

‘That’s right. The sports pages. There might be a match report too.’

It’s only a newspaper, Helen told herself as she flicked through the pages. Just because she had avoiding reading one, or even touching one, since that day she’d asked Mr Hopkins for a copy of the
Evening Standard
, didn’t mean she could avoid them for ever.

‘Is there a report?’

‘Yes. Yes, there is.’

‘I’d be obliged if you could read it to me. Only my daft missus has gone and taken my specs home with her, and I’m lost without them. Nurse?’

His voice was muffled under the roar of blood in Helen’s ears.

Read it, she urged herself. Stop making a fool of yourself and read the wretched newspaper.

She cleared her throat and started to read. But her hands were suddenly shaking so much she couldn’t hold the newspaper still.

‘Nurse?’ She heard Mr Casey’s voice. He seemed to be shouting. ‘Nurse!’

‘It’s all right, Mr Casey, you don’t have to shout,’ she tried to say. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth and she stumbled over the words.

Then she saw a blur of blue uniforms converging on her and realised he wasn’t shouting at her. He was calling to the other nurses to help.

She saw Sister Blake’s face, distorted as if she was looking at her through the bottom of a very thick glass.

‘I’m sorry, Sister, I don’t think I’m feeling quite well—’ were Helen’s last words, before the world started sliding slowly sideways and she slipped to the floor.

Helen had recovered by the time Kathleen Fox reached the sick bay, thanks to a generous whiff of sal volatile. She lay against the pillows, still half asleep.

Sister Blake sat at her bedside. She rose as Matron walked in, but Kathleen waved her back into her seat.

‘How is she?’

‘Better than she was. She became rather agitated when she came round, so Dr McKay gave her a mild sedative. Not that she really needed it – I don’t think she’s slept in weeks.’

‘Did he say what was wrong with her?’

‘She doesn’t have a fever, and her pulse is normal. Dr McKay thinks it might be nervous exhaustion. It’s not surprising, really. The poor girl has been struggling to cope for such a long time.’

Kathleen looked at Helen. Her skin was so translucent she could see the fine network of blue veins on the closed eyelids. ‘I should never have let it go on like this for so long. I should have sent her home straight away.’

‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ Sister Blake said. ‘She wouldn’t let anyone help her. She wore herself out trying to prove to everyone that she could cope.’

‘She’s paying for it now, isn’t she?’ Kathleen sighed. ‘Look at her. How young she looks. You forget these nurses aren’t much more than girls.’

As if she knew she was being discussed, Helen’s eyes fluttered open.

‘Wh-Where am I?’ She looked around, dazed and dishevelled, then caught sight of Kathleen. ‘Matron!’

She struggled to sit up, but Kathleen moved to her bedside and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

‘It’s all right, Dawson, don’t try to get up,’ she said. ‘You’re in the sick bay. You collapsed on the ward.’

‘You gave us all quite a scare!’ Sister Blake put in.

A faint blush swept over Helen’s high cheekbones. ‘I’m so sorry, Sister . . . Matron. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Don’t you? I do.’ Kathleen sat down beside her so they were eye to eye. ‘You are physically and mentally exhausted. You need to rest.’

Helen shook her head. ‘I need to go back to work . . .’

‘Not this time. When you are feeling well enough, you may return to your room and pack a bag. I will telephone your mother to come and collect you.’

‘No!’ A look of panic flashed across Helen’s face. ‘Please, Matron, don’t call my mother. I’m feeling perfectly all right, honestly. I think it must have been the heat.’

‘Dawson, you are far from all right!’ Kathleen’s voice was firm. ‘You should never have been allowed on duty in the first place. You need to go home and rest. You can’t take care of other people if you don’t take care of yourself.’

‘But couldn’t I just stay here?’ Helen pleaded.

‘Out of the question,’ Kathleen said. ‘Your mother would never allow it, and quite rightly too. Your place is with her.’

She caught Helen’s beseeching look, and suddenly she understood.

‘Give your mother a chance,’ she urged. ‘You never know, she may surprise you.’

And I hope for everyone’s sake she does, Kathleen added silently to herself.

‘
HAVE YOU SEEN
what they’re doing now?’

Dr Adler tossed a copy of the
Daily Mirror
down on to Esther Gold’s bed. It was the middle of the morning, and Dora was in the middle of the locker round.

‘Do you mind, Doctor?’ She snatched up the newspaper. ‘There’ll be hell to pay from Sister if that print gets on the sheets.’

It was lucky Sister Everett was supervising a pro’s first enema behind the screens at the far end of the ward, otherwise she would have been most displeased by the interruption.

Esther looked up at him blankly. ‘What’s going on?’

‘The Blackshirts are planning a march through the East End. Read it for yourself.’ He took the newspaper out of Dora’s hands and handed it to Esther.

‘The Blackshirts are always marching,’ Dora said, wiping down the tiled top of the locker. Barely a Sunday afternoon went by without her seeing them parading down the street in their black uniforms, heading for some street corner rally or other.

‘This is different,’ Dr Adler said. ‘It’s supposed to be some kind of anniversary celebration. Every Blackshirt in the land is going to converge on London, and march from the City out through the streets of the East End to a rally in Bethnal Green. Can you imagine it? There’ll be thousands of them.’

‘It says here Sir Oswald Mosley himself will be addressing them,’ Esther said, reading from the newspaper.

‘But I don’t understand. Why are they coming here, to the East End?’ Dora asked. ‘Surely they’d be better off having this rally somewhere up west?’

Dr Adler sent her an almost pitying look. ‘Because they want to cause as much trouble as possible, I imagine. They’re marching through our streets, past our shops and businesses, just to provoke a fight.’

‘Do you think they’ll come past the factory?’ Esther looked up, her dark eyes full of fear.

‘I told you, they want to provoke us – what do you think you’re doing?’ he broke off, as Esther threw aside her bedclothes.

‘What does it look like?’ She swung her legs out of bed and started searching for her slippers. ‘I need to go home.’

‘Get back into bed before Sister catches you!’ Dora threw Dr Adler a despairing look. ‘You can’t discharge yourself.’

‘I’m not going to stay in this hospital bed while my home is being attacked by those thugs.’ She searched around. ‘Where are my clothes? I need to get dressed.’

‘Esther, please.’ Dr Adler stepped in. ‘The march isn’t happening until the beginning of October. You’ll be home by then.’

‘But my father—’

‘I told you, I’ll look after him. I’ll look after both of you.’

Dora saw their hands brush against each other on the bedcover, and looked away quickly.

‘Let’s get you back into bed,’ she said briskly, to cover her embarrassment.

‘You’d best do as Nurse Doyle says,’ Dr Adler advised, the moment broken. ‘She’s a very hard woman if you get on the wrong side of her.’

Esther smiled at her. ‘Dora isn’t hard. She’s strong, like me.’

Just then Sister Everett emerged from behind the screens and spotted Dr Adler.

‘Really, Doctor, we are running a hospital, not a social club!’ she snapped as she ushered him out of the double doors.

‘Will your brother be going on that march, do you think?’ Esther asked as she watched Dora scrubbing out her locker.

She stopped, the brush in her hand. ‘I hope not.’

‘He’s still involved with them, then?’

Dora felt herself blushing. She had truly believed that Peter had had a change of heart about the Blackshirts after what they’d done to Esther. But gradually he had allowed himself to be drawn back in. He swore to Dora that he no longer roamed the backstreets at night looking for trouble, but he still went to the meetings and marches, and she had seen him handing out pamphlets in the street.

‘I told you, you don’t know what they’re like,’ he insisted. ‘I’m scared about what they might do to Mum or the kids.’

‘Keep him out of it,
bubele
,’ Esther urged her now. ‘For his sake, try to get him to stay away.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Dora promised.

‘Stick your moniker on here, will you?’

Nick looked down at the piece of paper Harry Fishman had thrust under his nose. ‘What’s this?’

‘A petition against this march the Blackshirts are planning. We want to send ’em the message that we don’t want their kind in the East End.’

He glared across the Porters’ Lodge at Peter Doyle as he said it. Peter didn’t look up from his newspaper.

‘Now, I’m not sure I approve of political activity in this lodge,’ Mr Hopkins spoke up as Nick scrawled his signature across the paper. ‘It’s not good for morale.’

‘Better tell him that, then.’ Harry glowered at Peter. ‘He’s been spouting his Blackshirt rubbish in here long enough.’

‘Leave it, Harry,’ Nick warned wearily.

‘Anyway, we’re planning to fight back,’ Harry said. ‘We’re going to be out on the streets on that Sunday, protesting against the march. Let Mosley and his lot see if they can get past us!’ His broad chest swelled with pride. ‘You’ll be with us, won’t you, Nick? We could always do with a bit more muscle on our side.’

‘Count me out,’ he said.

Harry stared at him. ‘Don’t tell me you’re siding with the Blackshirts?’

‘I ain’t siding with nobody, all right? I just don’t want to get involved.’

‘You live round here, don’t you? I reckon that makes you involved whether you like it or not.’

‘All the same, I’m staying out of it.’

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Arthur, one of the other porters, jumped in. ‘Best leave it, Harry,’ he murmured. ‘He’s like a bear with a sore head at the minute.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Between you, me and the gatepost, I reckon he’s lovesick.’