The Nightingale Girls

CHAPTER Sixteen



CHRISTMAS DAY ON Holmes had started with the laying out of a corpse.

When Sister Holmes arrived on the ward that morning, her main concern was what kind of mess the night staff had left in the ward kitchen. They were careless enough at the best of times, but on Christmas Eve night there was bound to be some extra merriment. Some of the nurses had been particularly giddy as they’d done their traditional Christmas Eve carol singing around the wards, their cloaks turned inside out to show the red lining, each carrying a candle glowing inside a jam jar. She only hoped none of them had found their way into the locked cupboard where she kept the emergency brandy supply.

But there was no giddiness, just sombre faces all round as the Night Sister told her Mr Oliver had died just after dawn.

It was the last thing Sister Holmes was expecting. After recovering so well for weeks he had taken a sudden turn for the worse during the night. Everyone said after his accident he was lucky to escape death; now it seemed death had come to claim him after all.

Sister Holmes looked around the nurses who’d come on duty an hour earlier. Young Tremayne and Hollins were white-faced and shaken. Even Staff Nurse Mary Lund, who had been her right-hand woman for five years, was downcast. Although as an experienced nurse, she did a better job than the students of not showing it.

‘I know this is a sad time for all of us but remember we have a duty to our other patients,’ Sister Holmes reminded them all when she handed out the work lists for that day. ‘It’s Christmas Day, and these men are away from their loved ones, lonely and in pain. We must be professional and put aside our own feelings. Try to make the day as pleasant for them and for ourselves as possible.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ they chorused.

‘Hollins, I want you to perform last offices.’

Hollins looked up sharply. ‘But Sister—’

‘I don’t believe I asked for a debate, Hollins.’ She shot the student a sharp, silencing look.

‘Are you sure I shouldn’t do it, Sister?’ Mary Lund asked as the girls headed for the sluice. ‘He’s only a young man, not much older than they are . . .’

‘They are nurses, Lund. They must learn to do their duty whatever the circumstances.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘It’s a hard lesson, Lund, but this is a hard profession. The sooner they realise that, the better.’ Especially Hollins, she thought. If she put as much care and thought into her work as she did into flirting with the young doctors, she might even manage to pass her state exams.

Mary Lund lowered her eyes. ‘Yes, Sister.’

Sister Holmes went to her office and closed the door. Sitting down at her desk, she loosened the strings of her starched bonnet from under her chin and massaged her pounding temples. Less than half an hour into her duty and she was already exhausted. She had no idea how she was ever going to get through the next twelve hours, let alone stay cheerful for the patients.

All her strength had been spent on her mother. She had been awake most of the night, in and out of bed, pacing the floor of her bedroom, wandering on the landing, searching for her dead husband. She had fought as her daughter tried to comfort her.

‘Who are you? I don’t know you. Get out!’ she’d screamed.

‘Shhh, Mother. It’s me, Miranda.’

‘You’re not Miranda.’ The old woman shrank away from her, her face contorted with horror. ‘Miranda is at school. You’re not my daughter!’

And then she had had to calm and coax and whisper to her, until the moment came when her mother finally remembered again. It saddened her so much to see the confusion and panic in her face as she realised that more than twenty years had somehow slipped by, and she was no longer Elise Pallister, the beautiful and celebrated stage actress, but an old, sick woman whose husband was dead and whose daughter was a grown woman she barely recognised.

Miranda had put her mother back to bed and rocked her like a child until finally she fell asleep just before dawn. Then she had left her in the care of their housekeeper Mrs Jarvis and come on duty.

It was almost a relief to step inside the gates of the Nightingale, where she could cease to be Miranda Pallister with all her worries and heartache and become Sister Holmes instead. Here, on the ward, she could impose order. She had patients to care for, and nurses who needed her calm authority. For a few hours at least, she had the perfect excuse to switch off and forget all about what was happening at home.

Except she never did. The sadness and anxiety were always there, tugging at the corners of her mind.

A soft tap on the door disturbed her thoughts.

‘Sister?’ Staff Nurse Lund called. ‘Mr Hopkins is here to take Mr Oliver away. Shall I deal with it?’

‘I’m just coming.’ Sister Holmes quickly rearranged her cap, fastening the strings with shaking fingers. She gave herself a careful once over in the looking glass to make sure she looked as immaculate as ever. Her nurses and patients expected nothing less than perfection from her.

As she practised a smile at her reflection, she remembered how she used to watch with fascination as her mother put on her make-up, sitting at her dressing table surrounded by powder and paint.

‘You have to put on a face for your public, darling,’ she’d always said.

Sister Holmes adjusted her cap and went out to meet her public.

Helen couldn’t stop thinking about Mr Oliver as she did TPRs. She couldn’t begin to imagine how his family would feel, waking up on Christmas morning to the news that their son was dead. And what about his girlfriend, that poor girl who had sat so devotedly at his bedside, stroking his hand and telling him she loved him?

And the fact that it happened on Christmas Day, a day that was supposed to be so full of hope and expectation, just made it seem even more cruel somehow.

His passing cast a shadow over the rest of the ward. As the news rippled through the rest of the patients, the men became subdued. There was none of the usual banter and merriment that usually accompanied the early morning routine. Everyone had taken Percy Oliver to their hearts, willing him to get better. Not just because he seemed like a nice lad, but because his miraculous recovery from surgery gave them all hope that they would pull through, too.

The only one who didn’t seem troubled about it was Amy Hollins. She was too preoccupied with what she was going to wear to the Christmas Dance.

‘I don’t know whether to go with the pink or the green,’ she mused. It was unusual for Amy to give her the time of day, so Helen guessed her need to gossip outweighed her aversion. ‘My pink dress is new, but the green one is prettier. Actually, it’s not really green, more a sort of eau de nil . . . what are you wearing?’

‘I’m not going.’ Helen held up a thermometer to check the reading.

‘What a surprise.’ Amy rolled her eyes. ‘I suppose you don’t like dancing, as well as everything else?’

‘I just don’t see the point.’ The truth was, she’d never danced in her life. And she wasn’t about to try it, since her mother had forbidden her to go.

‘I will not have you associated with it,’ she’d declared. ‘It’s a waste of hospital funds, and it encourages over-familiarity among the medical staff.’

Looking at Amy’s expression now, it was clear she was expecting a great deal of overfamiliarity. Indeed, she would probably be bitterly disappointed if it didn’t happen.

‘You’re so wet, Tremayne,’ Amy accused her. ‘But then, I don’t suppose you’re too worried about meeting anyone at the dance, are you? You’ve got your eye on someone else.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, come on! We all know you fancy Charlie Denton!’

‘I do not!’ Helen could feel the colour rising in her face.

‘Then why are you always hanging around him? “Would you like a tray, Mr Denton? Can I plump up your pillows for you, Mr Denton?”’ she mimicked Helen’s voice.

‘I’m just trying to be a good nurse.’

‘Really? I don’t see you plumping up Mr Boyd’s pillows every five minutes. Oh, no, I forgot. He’s just a smelly old bloke with a prostectomy, not a handsome young man whose fiancée has just left him.’ Amy laughed unkindly. ‘Fancy yourself as her replacement, do you? Reckon you stand a chance with him, just because he’s lost his leg and no one else will have him?’

‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’ Helen hurried to the next bed, keen to put as much distance between herself and Amy Hollins’ smirking face as she could.

It was traditional for the nurses to have their own celebration in Sister’s sitting room on Christmas morning. Sister Holmes served them all coffee and handed out the small gifts she had bought for them all. In spite of their downcast mood, they all oohed and aahed dutifully over their bottles of scent and tins of talc, and Sister Holmes looked just as pleased with the ashtray they’d all clubbed together to buy her. By the time she’d added a dash of weak brandy to their coffee from the bottle she kept in her emergency cupboard, and they’d cracked open the boxes of chocolates and dates given to them by grateful patients, their good humour was almost restored.

When the porters arrived with their Christmas dinner, the men were in good spirits too. For once, anyone who could get out of bed gathered around the table in the centre of the ward to watch Head Porter Edwin Hopkins carve the turkey. He enjoyed the importance of the moment, and insisted on saying a lengthy Grace before starting to carve. Helen was used to prayers before meals at home, but the men started shifting restlessly and clearing their throats, and Sister Holmes sent him a sideways look over her clasped hands

‘Blimey, tell me he’s not a surgeon!’ Mr O’Sullivan joked as Mr Hopkins inexpertly hacked off a wing and served it up on to one of the waiting plates.

As Helen helped pass the plates down the table, she noticed one seat was empty. Charlie Denton was still slumped in bed, staring into space.

She went over to him, smiling brightly. ‘Not joining us, Mr Denton? I thought you’d be keen to try out your new leg?’ He’d been fitted with a temporary prosthetic the day before, but it had lain unused ever since.

He gazed past her listlessly. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘But you must eat. I can bring your dinner over for you, if you like?’

‘I told you, I’m not hungry,’ he snapped. Helen flinched. She had never known him raise his voice, he was always ready with a smile for everyone.

She went back to the table. ‘Everything all right, Tremayne?’ Sister Holmes said.

‘Mr Denton doesn’t feel like eating.’

Sister Holmes looked over at him, slumped against his pillows. ‘Well, he’ll just have to miss out, then,’ she said briskly. ‘This is a hospital, not a hotel. We can’t serve patients their food whenever they feel like it.’

As they handed the plates around, Amy Hollins sidled up to Helen. ‘You must be losing your touch,’ she said. ‘Your Mr Denton doesn’t feel like flirting with you any more.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

As she walked away, she heard Amy say, ‘Looks like even cripples have standards.’

Helen tried to ignore the nasty remarks, and kept her eye on Charlie Denton all afternoon. The other men played dominoes and cards at the table, but despite their urging he refused to join them.

At three o’clock they all gathered around the wireless to listen to King George giving his broadcast to the nation.

‘I’ll never get used to hearing his voice,’ Mr O’Sullivan said. ‘Imagine him, sitting there in Sandringham at this very moment, talking to us here. It makes you proud, doesn’t it?’

‘I’d sooner be where he is than where I am,’ one of the other men joked.

‘I don’t know as I would. Poor devil hasn’t had an easy time of it, has he? What with the war and then all the trouble in Ireland, and the General Strike, and then the economy collapsing round our ears.’

‘I haven’t noticed him standing at the dock gates looking for work.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Mr O’Sullivan insisted stoutly. ‘And he’s not been well himself either. He hasn’t been right this past ten years—’

‘Will you shut up about the bloody King?’ Charlie Denton shouted, shocking them into silence. ‘It’s bad enough we have to lie here and listen to him droning on about this and that, without you lot joining in as well!’ He lay back against the pillows, exhausted by his outburst.

Sister Holmes tutted. ‘Really, someone is not feeling in a festive mood at all, are they? Go and see to him, Tremayne. And try to offer some words of comfort if you can, before he upsets the whole ward.’

Aware that Amy was watching her, Helen made a cup of tea and carried it down the length of the ward to where Charlie lay, staring up at the ceiling. All the life and hope that had kept him going through the bad days after his accident seemed to have drained away, leaving him a husk of misery.

‘Here you are, Mr Denton.’ She forced brightness into her voice. ‘I’ve made you a nice cup of tea.’

‘Tea?’ He stared at her, his blue eyes cold. ‘That’ll make everything all right, will it?’

‘It can’t make things any worse.’

‘No, you’re right there.’ He shifted his gaze towards the window. Rain streamed down the panes of glass. ‘They couldn’t get much worse, could they?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘At least you can get up and about now you’ve got your new leg.’

‘That thing?’ Mr Denton looked in disgust at the plaster contraption, with its complex straps and splints. ‘Not exactly a leg, is it?’

‘I admit it’s not the prettiest thing in the world, but it gets the job done. And you’ll have a permanent one once you’ve mastered getting around on this one.’ Helen put the cup down on his bedside locker. ‘How about we give it a try now? I could help you get it on?’

He turned his gaze back towards the window. ‘What’s the point?’ he said listlessly.

‘Well, you need to keep your muscles properly exercised if they’re going to support you enough to walk again—’

‘Yes, but I’m not going to walk again, am I? You keep talking about my new leg, and being up and about again, as if this useless bloody stump is suddenly going to grow back again and I’m going to be as good as new. But that’s not going to happen, is it?’

Helen glanced around her, uncomfortably aware of all the glances in their direction. ‘Keep your voice down, Mr Denton. You’re disturbing the other patients.’

‘I don’t care. Don’t you understand that, Nurse? I don’t bloody care!’ His eyes blazed with anger. ‘I didn’t just lose my leg in that accident, I lost everything. And I’m sick of putting a brave face on it, pretending it’s all a big lark, and that everything is going to be hunky-dory again. Because it isn’t, is it? When I get out of there, what have I got? I’ll tell you, shall I? Nothing. No job, no future, no girl to marry. Everything I dreamed of, everything I hoped for, just gone. When that machine took my leg, it took everything else with it. I wish it had finished the job. If I’d known what was going to happen to me, I would have chucked myself in.’ A muscle flickered in his tense jaw. ‘So no, Nurse, I don’t want your false leg or your false smiles or your false bloody promises. And I don’t want your bloody tea, either!’

He knocked the cup off his locker with an angry sweep of his arm. Helen tried to dodge but the hot liquid caught her square in the chest.

For a moment no one moved. She looked down at the spreading brown stain on the bib of her apron.

Mr Denton’s anger quickly turned to horror. ‘Nurse Tremayne, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’ he started to say, but something inside Helen snapped.

‘Sorry? You should be sorry!’ The voice that came out of her was louder and harsher than she had ever heard herself use before. ‘How dare you sit there and say you wish you were dead? A young man lost his life this morning. Somewhere out there, there’s a family mourning their son. And there’s your family, sitting down to their dinner and giving thanks that theirs is still alive.’ She was aware that Sister Holmes, halfway down the ward towards them, had stopped in her tracks. ‘Do you think Mr Oliver wanted to die? With his serious head injuries God knows what kind of life he would have had if he’d survived, and yet he was fighting for it right up until the end. Because he knew that any life is better than no life at all.’ She felt hot tears of anger spring to her eyes. ‘So don’t you ever, ever sit there full of self-pity and moan about your life. Because someone out there decided that it was worth sparing. And there are some people who aren’t nearly as fortunate as you.’

In the deafening silence that followed, the only thing Helen could hear was her own breathing, hard and ragged.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘Go and compose yourself, Tremayne,’ Sister Holmes said quietly. ‘Hollins can clear up this mess.’

Helen left the ward in a daze, aware of every single pair of eyes on her. Outside in the courtyard the cold rain hit her like a slap in the face, bringing her sharply to her senses.

What had she done? She had allowed her feelings to get the better of her, and now her anger was ebbing away she felt thoroughly ashamed.

‘Hels?’ She glanced around. William was hurrying through the rain towards her. ‘I was just playing cards in the porters’ lodge when I saw you rush past. What are you doing out here? What have you done to yourself?’

Helen looked down at the stain on her apron. She’d forgotten all about it. ‘There was an accident,’ she said, shivering in the rain. ‘I need to go and change—’

‘Not until you tell me everything.’ William grasped her wrist. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf. Calm down and tell me what’s happened.’

They took shelter in a doorway, and Helen explained about losing her temper with Charlie Denton. William listened intently.

‘And he threw a cup of tea over you?’ His jaw was set with anger. ‘I’m going to have a word with him—’

‘No, don’t,’ Helen pleaded. ‘He was just upset.’

‘He’ll have something to be upset about when I’ve finished with him. How dare he do that to my sister?’

‘I think I’ve already said enough to him,’ Helen said. ‘There’s no point in both of us getting into trouble.’

‘Good for you. It sounds as if he had it coming.’

‘But I behaved in an unprofessional manner,’ she said miserably. ‘I’ll probably be sent to Matron.’

‘It won’t come to that,’ William soothed.

‘It will. And then Mother will find out about it, and then . . .’ she trailed off. And then she would never, ever hear the end of it, she thought.

Once she’d calmed William down and reassured him that she didn’t need him to go into battle with Charlie Denton, Helen went back to the nurses’ home to change into a fresh apron. Then she returned to the ward.

She crept back full of trepidation, ready to apologise to anybody and everybody. She had barely got through the doors before Sister Holmes stepped into her path.

‘Feeling a little calmer, Tremayne?’ Her brows rose questioningly.

‘Yes, Sister. Thank you, Sister.’ Helen hung her head, ready to say the speech she had been practising in her head all the way back from the nurses’ home. ‘I am so sorry, Sister. It was very wrong of me to speak out of turn like that. I will apologise to Mr Denton, of course.’

‘Before you do, Tremayne, perhaps you had better take a look?’

Sister Holmes stepped aside. Helen lifted her head warily. There, at the far end of the ward, Mr Denton sat in the chair beside his bed, doing a crossword, his temporary prosthetic propped up on a stool in front of him.

‘It seems your little lecture did him the world of good,’ Sister Holmes said. ‘But please don’t make a habit of it, will you, Tremayne?’

‘No, Sister.’

She didn’t approach him straight away. Sister Holmes might have forgiven her, but she wasn’t sure Charlie Denton ever would.

Finally, she could avoid it no longer. She and Amy were doing TPRs again, and it was just her luck he was last on her list.

‘Nurse T,’ he greeted her quietly.

‘Mr Denton.’

They were both silent as she checked his pulse. It wasn’t until she’d recorded the number on the chart at the bottom of his bed that he finally said, ‘Thanks.’

‘What for?’

‘Giving me a kick up the backside.’ His eyes met hers. ‘I reckon I needed it.’

Helen’s head spun with all kinds of emotions. There was so much she wanted to say, but this time she managed to stay professional.

‘Would you like that cup of tea now, Mr Denton?’ she asked.

‘Thank you, Nurse. That would be very nice indeed.’

She went to great lengths to lay out a tea tray nicely with a pretty coloured cloth and a Christmas cracker. As she tucked a spring of holly into his saucer, she told herself that Amy Hollins was wrong. She would do the same for any patient, even Mr Boyd.