The Nightingale Nurses (8 page)

‘So private you won’t even tell us his name?’ Sheila laughed. ‘If you’re not careful, we’ll start to think this Mr Perfect of yours doesn’t even exist.’

‘Of course he exists!’ Amy’s voice rose. ‘I’ve got proof, too. He gave me this last night.’

Millie couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder. Amy had unfastened her collar and was delving down inside her dress. Millie caught a flash of gold before Amy turned on her, scowling.

‘Haven’t you finished that ice bag yet?’ she snapped.

‘Nearly.’ Millie emptied the ice into a bowl and took it over to the sink to run it under tepid water to melt off any sharp edges. But her attention was still fixed on Amy and Sheila.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Sheila sighed. ‘But you’re taking a risk, aren’t you? You know you’re not allowed to wear jewellery.’

‘There’s a lot of things I’m not allowed to do!’

Some whispering and giggling followed. Then Millie heard Sheila’s shocked gasp.

‘Oh, Hollins, you didn’t!’

‘Well, he’d gone to all the trouble of booking a suite. I couldn’t disappoint him, could I?’

‘What was it like?’

‘It was blissful. The rooms looked over the river, and it had the biggest bathroom you could imagine—’

‘I didn’t mean the hotel room, silly!’

They shrieked with laughter. Millie turned back to her ice and let out a cry of dismay. She had paid so much attention to Amy Hollins’ story, she hadn’t noticed the ice melting under the tepid water.

Amy crossed the room and glanced over her shoulder. ‘Now look what you’ve done! You’ll have to start all over again. Serves you right for eavesdropping on our conversation.’

‘I wouldn’t be eavesdropping if you weren’t in here gossiping,’ Millie muttered under her breath.

‘Did you say something?’ Hollins frowned.

Millie kept her head down. ‘No.’

‘It’s a good thing too, or I’d report you straight to Matron.’

Millie went off to fetch more ice and left them giggling and gossiping together.

Coming out of the sluice, the first person she met was Staff Nurse Crockett. She was a squat woman in her forties, much older than any of the other staff nurses. Millie heard rumours that she’d stayed on Female Medical for so many years because she was devoted to Sister Everett.

If she was devoted then she had an odd way of showing it. The pair bickered constantly, and occasionally went for days without speaking. It made life very difficult for the students sometimes.

Today, thankfully, they were in perfect accord.

‘We have a kidney abscess just come in. Bed Six, a Mrs Lovell,’ she announced. ‘Sister wants you and O’Hara to settle her in and give her a bath.’

The new patient sat on the edge of her bed, her coat pulled tightly around her in spite of the warm spring day outside. Katie O’Hara, another second-year student, was trying to coax her out of it.

‘Come along, Mrs Lovell,’ she was saying in her gentle Irish lilt. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had a nice warm bath.’

‘I ain’t staying,’ Mrs Lovell growled. Her expression was truculent under her wild mane of grey-streaked hair. ‘I need to go, see. My family are off on the road and I’ve got to go with them.’

‘I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere until the doctor has been to see you, Mrs Lovell,’ Millie said.

‘I don’t hold with no doctors. And I don’t hold with no hospitals, neither. I told ’em, I didn’t ought to be here.’

‘Yes, well, I’m sure the doctor will explain everything when he comes round.’ Millie went to remove her coat, but Mrs Lovell lashed out at her like an angry, spitting cat.

‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ she snapped, her black eyes gleaming. ‘I told you, I ain’t staying. I ain’t slept under a roof in my fifty years, and I ain’t going to start now!’

Millie turned to Katie. ‘You hold her down, I’ll get it off her.’

Katie shook her head. ‘I’m not touching her,’ she whispered. ‘You know what she is, don’t you? A gypsy.’

‘What of it?’

‘You have to be careful of gypsies. They have powers. They can put a curse on you, just like that.’

Millie laughed. But then she saw the terror in Katie’s eyes and realised she was deadly serious.

‘What superstitious nonsense!’

‘She’s right, my wench,’ Mrs Lovell murmured. ‘I can put a gypsy curse on someone, if I have a mind to do it.’

‘You see?’ Katie retreated a few steps towards the curtains. ‘I’m not risking it, Benedict, and neither should you.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Millie turned to Mrs Lovell. ‘Look, I’m awfully sorry you haven’t been able to go on the road with your family, but you’re ill. You have an abscess on your kidney, and you need proper medical treatment.’

‘I can treat myself,’ Mrs Lovell insisted stubbornly, her arms folded across her chest. ‘Romanies don’t have any need for doctors and medicine.’

Millie suppressed a sigh. ‘I daresay you’re right, but we can make you better a lot quicker. And surely the sooner you recover, the sooner you can catch up with your family. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Mrs Lovell eyed her suspiciously. Millie saw Katie out of the corner of her eye, edging towards the curtain, but she stood her ground.

Finally, Mrs Lovell said, ‘All right, then. Do what you have to do. But don’t think I’m happy about it,’ she added, shooting a malevolent look past Millie at Katie, who ducked away.

‘Thank you. Right, let’s start by making you more comfortable, shall we?’

She reached to take off the woman’s coat, then let out a squeak of shock as Mrs Lovell’s hand shot out, fixing around her wrist like a claw.

‘Your young man’s over the water, ain’t he?’

Millie frowned back at her. ‘How did you know that?’

Mrs Lovell grinned up at her, showing a few stumpy, misshapen teeth. ‘You’d be surprised what I know, my wench.’

Ruby ran the tap in the sink and plunged her hands into the warm soapy water. It was so much easier to do the washing when you didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to heat up the water in the copper, or drag the dolly tub out into the freezing yard. She pitied her mum, getting up on a Monday morning, knowing she had a back-breaking day’s work ahead of her.

But she missed it too. She and her mum would usually have a good laugh together while they worked, gossiping about all the neighbours and the goings-on in Griffin Street. It wasn’t the same, rinsing out Nick’s shirts on her own in the kitchen.

She’d thought she would enjoy the peace and quiet of having the place to herself, not having to put up with her noisy brothers or her mum and dad arguing. But sometimes she felt homesick for her family and for Griffin Street. Being stuck up on the third floor of Victory House with just a narrow concrete walkway outside her front door, she never saw her neighbours. She missed being surrounded by the world going about its business, people laughing, crying and arguing just a few feet from her back door.

She even missed Gold’s Garments. That cow Esther Gold and her dad worked the girls hard, but there was still plenty of time for a laugh over the machines as they stitched and snipped.

She rinsed out the washing in cold water, then put it through the mangle and took it outside. Nick had rigged up a washing line for her, strung across the walkway. It was a brisk, breezy late April day and washing fluttered like bunting outside the other flats.

‘Someone’s been busy, I see.’

Ruby looked around and saw a man dressed in a shabby pin-stripe suit and trilby hat.

‘Always busy on wash day, ain’t it?’ he said. ‘Although being a modern young lady, I suppose you’ve got one of them new washing machines to do it all for you? I’ve heard all you have to do is switch them on. And no washday hands!’

Ruby hid her hands in the folds of her skirt. ‘Who are you?’

‘I beg your pardon, Madam. I’ve forgotten my manners.’ He raised his hat, revealing sparse greasy strands of hair stretched over his shining bald head. ‘Bert Wallis, at your service.’

She had never been called Madam before. ‘Am I meant to have heard of you?’

‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘I represent Parker and Sons Credit Company. I expect you’ll see me around here quite a lot.’ His eyes scanned the flats. ‘We have several customers in Victory House. Young couples like yourself, needing a bit of help to make ends meet.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Ruby flared up. ‘Who says we need help to make ends meet?’

‘Oh, don’t take it the wrong way, Madam, I’m sure I didn’t mean any offence,’ he said hastily. ‘It’s just I know from experience how difficult it can be, when you’re first starting out.’ He glanced past her into the flat. ‘Just married, are you?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’

‘I thought so. Your husband’s a lucky man, if I may say so.’ He gave her an oily smile. ‘And this is your first home together, eh? That’s nice. But it’s not easy, is it, when you first move into a place? I expect you’re having to make do and mend with a lot of old bits and pieces, aren’t you?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s a real shame. A beautiful place like this deserves to be done out nicely, doesn’t it? Why should you start your married life with a load of old cast-offs when you could turn this place into a proper little palace?’

Ruby pursed her lips. She’d been saying the same thing to Nick the night before, but as usual he’d said they couldn’t afford it.

‘I can see you’re the type of young lady who appreciates the finer things in life,’ Bert Wallis said. ‘You want everything nice, don’t you? And that’s where I come in.’ He shifted closer, lowering his voice. ‘You take out a loan with us to buy what you need now, and pay for it gradually, over the coming weeks and months.’

The truth dawned. ‘A debt, you mean?’ Ruby shook her head. ‘My husband would never agree to that.’

‘I told you, it’s not what you’d call a debt. More like . . . easy terms. There’s no shame in it. Everyone’s doing it, even the Hollywood stars.’

That caught her interest. ‘What Hollywood stars?’

Bert Wallis pulled a face. ‘I can’t remember their names off hand, but I’m sure I read about it in
Picturegoer
.’

Ruby paused for a moment, thinking. She’d seen a Pathé newsreel at the pictures of Claudette Colbert’s home, and her bedroom was a dream. Ruby would love a glamorous new bedroom suite instead of that lumpy old mattress they’d borrowed from her mum . . .

She shook her head. ‘My Nick still wouldn’t like it.’

‘He needn’t know.’ Bert flicked his tongue over his lips. ‘We could fill in the forms now and you could pay me back, just a couple of shillings a week out of the housekeeping. What could be easier than that?’

It sounded easy enough, she thought. They probably wouldn’t even notice a few bob a week.

‘Imagine showing off this place to your friends when you’ve done it out nice?’ Bert’s voice was so low, she could feel herself being drawn in, as if she was being hypnotised. ‘You’d be the envy of everyone, wouldn’t you? You could even get yourself one of those washing machines. Just think what a blessing that would be.’

Ruby stared down at her hands, red and roughened from the harsh green washing soap.

‘Tell you what, it’s getting a bit blowy out here,’ Bert Wallis said, turning up his jacket collar. ‘Why don’t we go inside? Then we can have a nice cup of tea and I’ll give you all the details . . .’

THE FIRST THING
Dora saw when she arrived for her shift at seven o’clock was a man sleeping on the bench at the back of the waiting room.

Where had he come from? The porter had only unlocked the doors five minutes earlier. He must have been quick off the mark, she thought. Either that or he’d been crafty enough to get himself locked in overnight.

She looked around wildly, expecting to see Sister Percival bearing down on them, then remembered she wasn’t due on duty for another hour. Penny Willard hadn’t turned up yet, and Dr McKay was locked away in his consulting room. There was no one in the waiting room except her and the tramp.

Dora looked down at him snoring softly, stretched out on the bench, covered in a shabby black coat. He was a great bear of a man, with a shaggy head of dark curls. He’d taken off his shoes, and his big toes peeped out of holes in both socks.

‘Excuse me?’ She tapped his shoulder. He didn’t stir.

She tried again. ‘Excuse me . . . Mister?’ He stirred, grunted, rolled over and went back to sleep. He was young for a tramp, no more than in his mid-thirties by the look of him.

She shook him harder. ‘Oi, you! You can’t sleep here.’

The man opened one brown eye and looked up at her. ‘Eh?’

‘I said, you can’t sleep here. This ain’t a dosshouse, y’know.’

‘Oh . . . right. Sorry, Nurse.’ He sat up, rubbing his hand through his hair. ‘What time is it?’

‘Time you weren’t here.’ Dora picked up his shoes and handed them to him.

He stared at them in confusion and then back up at her. ‘I’m sorry . . . you want me to leave?’

‘That’s the general idea, yes. Unless you’re ill and you want to see a doctor?’ She peered at him. ‘Are you ill?’ she asked.

He looked dazed. ‘Er . . . no,’ he admitted, looking sheepish. ‘Just tired, that’s all.’

‘So you thought you could sleep it off in here?’

‘Well, yes . . .’

‘Park bench not good enough for you, I suppose?’

‘Hardly.’ He paused for a moment, as if he was giving the matter some thought. ‘Look, Nurse, I think you might have got the wrong idea—’

‘No, mate, it’s you who’s got the wrong idea, thinking you can sleep off your hangover in here.’

‘Hangover? Oh, no.’ He shook his head. ‘You see, what happened is—’

‘That’s enough,’ Dora cut him off. ‘Just sling your hook. You’re making the place look untidy.’

She watched him as he crammed his feet into his worn-out shoes. She wished she hadn’t snapped at him. He seemed harmless enough, poor sod.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’d let you stay if I could, but I can’t. The Sister here is a right old cow, and she’d have my guts for garters.’ She reached into her pocket and took out a coin. ‘Here’s threepence. That should buy you a cup of tea at the café on the corner. They’ll probably let you shelter there for a bit, if you’re lucky.’

‘But—’

‘It’s all right, you don’t have to pay me back. Just don’t let me see your face around here again, all right?’