The Nightingale Girls

CHAPTER Twenty



‘TODAY I WILL be explaining the human reproductive system.’

A ripple of nervous giggles ran through the classroom, quickly silenced by Sister Parker’s stern look.

‘Really, Nurses, I fail to see what is so amusing. Reproduction is simply a function of the human body like any other. I don’t recall anyone being this giddy when I explained the digestive system,’ she reminded them. ‘Now, turn to page seventy three in your textbook. We’ll begin with the male sexual organs . . .’

There was a rustle of pages, and Millie pushed her book across the desk towards Dora. But she couldn’t bring herself to look down at the diagram in front of her.

‘As you can see, the male genitalia is comprised of the following . . .’

Someone in the back row gave an embarrassed cough. In front of her, Dora could see the tips of Katie O’Hara’s ears glowing red. Lucy Lane was making feverish notes, her pencil flying over the page as if her life depended on capturing every word.

Dora kept her gaze fixed on the colourful diagram of the respiratory system that was pinned to the wall opposite. She tried to fill her head with the song one of the older girls had been thumping out on the piano the previous night. Anything to tune out the words Sister Parker was saying.

Millie nudged her sharply. ‘You’re supposed to be writing all this down,’ she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

Dora stared down at the blank page of her notebook. As she did, she caught sight of the diagram in the textbook.

A sudden, horrible image of Alf Doyle came into her mind, grunting like an animal as he pushed himself insistently against her. She clamped her lips together to stop the tidal wave of nausea that swept up into her throat.

The room was chilly but she could feel perspiration standing out on her brow. She gulped for breath, but the air was suddenly filled with the smell of Alf’s stale sweat and cigarettes.

‘Is something the matter, Doyle?’

Sister Parker was staring at her across the classroom, her brows meeting in a frown over the top of her pebble spectacles.

‘I – I don’t feel very well, Sister,’ Dora whispered.

‘For heaven’s sake!’ The Sister Tutor tutted. ‘I might have known someone would have the vapours, but I didn’t think it would be you. Go outside and get some fresh air, girl. But be quick about it.’

Dora stumbled to her feet and hurried out of the classroom. As soon as she felt the slap of the icy January air on her cheeks she felt foolish. Fancy feeling sick at the sight of a drawing in a medical book! If she was like this now, how would she be when she reached the wards?

Of course Lucy Lane had a field day afterwards, regaling everyone who’d listen about Doyle turning queasy at the facts of life lecture.

‘I told them all it must have been something you ate,’ Millie told her loyally in their room later. Dora had escaped there as soon as the morning lectures had ended, unable to face lunch in the dining room with the others. Millie had taken the big risk of smuggling her a slice of bread and marge, even though it meant sneaking it past Sister Sutton’s room and Sparky’s keen nose.

‘Thanks.’ Dora nibbled on the crust. It might have been true, she reflected. She was usually ravenous by lunchtime, but it was all she could do to swallow past the solid lump of misery in her throat.

Millie watched her, her wide blue eyes sympathetic. ‘It is all rather beastly, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All that business Sister Parker told us about, I mean. Glenda Pritchard actually fainted when she told us during my last stint in PTS. So I think you did rather well, under the circumstances.’ She shook her head. ‘It seems so terribly complicated, doesn’t it?’ she whispered, her voice hushed with awe.

Dora put down her piece of bread, her appetite deserting her. ‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know,’ she said firmly. Then she added, ‘I think I should just pack it in and go home.’

Millie stared at her. ‘Why? Not just because you went a bit wobbly in a lecture, surely? I told you, Glenda Pritchard was far worse than you—’

‘Not just because of that,’ Dora said. The truth was, she didn’t feel as if she really belonged at the Nightingale. She’d really tried to fit in, but she was always painfully aware of the differences between her and the other pros. They were all well-to-do, well educated girls who knew so much more than she did. Not just the subjects they learned in class, but all the other things books didn’t teach. The unwritten rules, like which knife and fork to use, how to pour a cup of tea, how to speak properly. They talked in a language she didn’t understand, about ballet lessons and boarding schools.

And none of them understood her, either. None of them had lived the life she had, working in a sweat shop and dodging the rent man.

Not that she could explain that to Millie. She was the poshest of the lot of them, but she was also the nicest. She was so used to being pretty and popular, she simply wouldn’t be able to imagine what it must be like to feel like an outsider.

‘I’m going to fail PTS,’ Dora said. ‘The exams are only a couple of weeks away, and I still don’t have my books. I’ll never catch up at this rate.’

‘I’m sure they’d let you take PTS again, like they did me,’ Millie said cheerfully.

Dora smiled, but didn’t reply. They might give an Earl’s daughter a second chance, but she doubted if they’d do the same to an East End girl who’d barely scraped in the first time round.

‘Anyway, I’ve already said you can have my books,’ Millie went on.

‘And I’ve already said thanks but no thanks.’

‘There must be some way you can get the money to buy them?’

‘I don’t have rich relatives like you, more’s the pity.’

‘My relatives aren’t that rich, most of them are in hock up to their eyeballs just to keep – that’s it!’ Millie’s eyes lit up. ‘You could pawn something!’

Her pretty, innocent face was so earnest, Dora couldn’t help laughing. ‘And what does an Earl’s daughter know about pawning things?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Millie said. ‘My third cousin Lord Lumley had a terrible gambling habit. He was forever heading up to London with a suitcase full of the family silver.’

‘It’s a pity I don’t have any silver to pawn, then!’ Dora said wryly.

‘What about that charm your friend gave you?’

‘My hamsa? I can’t get rid of that.’

‘You wouldn’t be getting rid of it. You could get it back when you get paid next month.’

Dora considered it. Esther had told her to use it whenever she needed a bit of luck. Perhaps it would turn out to be lucky for her after all . . .

‘Can you pawn this for me?’

Nick examined the tiny silver hand Dora had given him. He’d never seen anything like it before. ‘What is it?’

‘My lucky charm.’

‘Why do you want to get rid of it, if it’s that lucky?’

‘Because I need the money to buy books. If I don’t get them, I’ll need more than a charm to get me through preliminary training.’

They stood on the patch of waste ground behind the nurses’ home. Nick had been intrigued when Dora had asked to meet him there. He’d tried to imagine what she might want, but this hadn’t even occurred to him.

‘Why come to me?’ he said. ‘Why not take it down to Solomon’s yourself?’

‘I don’t get another day off until next month and I need the money before then.’

‘Why don’t you ask your dad?’

‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ The vehemence of Dora’s reply shocked him. ‘I don’t want to ask him for money, all right? I’ve got my reasons.’ Her eyes met his. ‘Now, will you help me or not?’

Anyone else and he might have said no, especially after the way she’d just spoken to him. But Dora had always been good to him and Danny, and Nick didn’t forget a kindness.

‘I s’pose I could nip down there on my way home,’ he conceded grudgingly. He looked at the charm nestling in his palm. ‘How much do you need?’

‘The books cost just over a fiver new, but I might be able to get some secondhand for cheaper.’ She looked up at him anxiously. ‘Do you think I might get that much?’

‘From old Solomon? You’ll be lucky!’ he laughed, then saw the disappointment in her face and added, ‘I’ll see what I can do, all right? But no promises.’

‘I understand.’

She smiled that strange, lopsided smile of hers. No one in their right mind could ever call Dora pretty, but there was something about her.

He remembered her nanna’s words on Christmas Day: ‘Dora can’t afford to be fussy.’ And the way she’d turned red, and he’d pretended not to hear so she wouldn’t be embarrassed.

He liked Dora. She had a dream, just like him. He could imagine telling her about his plan to go to America, knowing she wouldn’t laugh at him.

As she walked away, he called after her, ‘How do you know I won’t just nick it and keep the money?’

She looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘I trust you,’ she said simply.

Her words haunted him all the way home. People didn’t trust Nick Riley. They either respected him because he was a hard grafter, or they feared him because he was good with his fists.

But no one had ever trusted him before. It was a strange, heady feeling.

He reached Solomon’s just as the old man was shutting up shop for the night.

Mr Solomon emerged from the curtained-off back room at the tinkle of the bell over the front door. He was a wiry little man, with a face as wrinkled as a walnut and shrewd brown eyes.

‘Nicky boy! To what do we owe this pleasure?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘How’s your mother? Well, I hope? I haven’t seen her in here for a while.’

That’s because we’ve got nothing left to pawn, Nick thought.

The musty smell of the cramped little shop made him feel sick. As a small boy it had seemed like a place of wonder, its shelves lined with all kinds of strange and magical things – old paintings, antiques, curios, children’s toys, even a stuffed cat once. And then there was the glass cabinet, crammed with watches, rings, necklaces, brooches, like a pirates’ treasure chest. He remembered spending hours just staring at them while his mother argued with old Solomon.

‘A tanner? Is that the best you can do, you tight old sod? How am I going to feed my kids?’

‘That’s your husband’s job, Mrs Riley, not mine,’ Mr Solomon would always reply.

But somehow the deed was always done in the end and his mother would drag Nick back to Griffin Street by the hand, complaining bitterly all the way about how she’d been robbed.

Ten years later she was still pawning everything she could get her hands on.

‘Got something for me, have you, Nick?’ Mr Solomon’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out Dora’s chain. ‘What can you give me for this?’

‘Well, well. What have we here?’ Mr Solomon dangled the chain from his fingers, admiring the charm as it swung gently before his eyes. ‘Now what’s a goy like you doing with a thing like this, Nicky boy?’ He looked up at him sharply. ‘You didn’t pinch it, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Nick glowered back at him. ‘It belongs to someone I know. Are you interested, or what?’

‘That depends, doesn’t it? I need to examine the merchandise closely first.’

Nick tried to control his impatience as Mr Solomon fetched his magnifying glass from under the counter and began scrutinising the charm against a square of green baize. He took ages doing it, turning it this way and that.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘In a hurry, aren’t you? Are you sure you didn’t nick it?’ The old man set down his magnifying glass and looked up at Nick. ‘It’s not a bad piece, I suppose. I’ll give you a pound for it.’

‘A quid? You must be joking! Anyone can see it’s worth more than that.’

‘They’re not standing here, though, are they? I am. And that’s my offer. So what do you say?’ Mr Solomon’s bright eyes fixed on him expectantly, waiting for his next move.

‘I say you’re a robbing . . .’

‘Now, now, Nicky boy, that’s no way to talk, is it?’ The old man looked more amused than insulted. He had been called a lot worse in his shop over the forty years he’d been trading in Bethnal Green. ‘Look, since your mother is such an old and valued customer of mine, I’ll be generous with you. How about I make it a nice round guinea?’

‘I need a fiver.’

‘Then you need your head looked at!’ Mr Solomon cackled. ‘Look, the chain’s a piece of cheap tat, worth next to nothing. The hamsa – well, it’s a nice piece, but nothing special. I’d be cutting my own throat if I offered you any more. I’m practically robbing myself as it is!’

I doubt that, Nick thought. If old Solomon was offering a guinea then it must be worth three times that at least.

Nick looked down at the charm lying on the green baize mat. Maybe a guinea would be enough for Dora to get her books secondhand?

But then he thought of the way she’d looked at him. ‘I trust you,’ she’d said. He couldn’t let her down.

‘Well?’ Mr Solomon’s bright brown eyes were fixed on him keenly. ‘Do we have a deal, Nicky boy?’

Nick looked from the charm to the old man and back again. ‘No chance.’ He picked it up off the counter. ‘I’d sooner chuck it in the Thames than let you have it.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The old man shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘But you’ll be back, I’m sure. Turn the sign round on your way out, will you? And give my regards to your mother,’ he called after Nick as he slammed the door behind him.

Nick walked back through the market. The traders were packing up their wares on to barrows, leaving only the wooden skeletons of their stalls behind. A little boy, eyes bright in his grimy face, oversized trousers rolled up to reveal worn out boots, dodged and weaved his way between them, swooping in under the stallholders’ feet and the rumbling barrow wheels to gather up the squashed, bruised fruit and veg that had fallen on the cobbles.

‘Watch it!’ one of the stallholders shouted, as he narrowly missed being run over to rescue an apple. ‘Do you want to get yourself killed, son?’

He picked an orange off the stall and tossed it to him. The boy caught it with one hand.

‘Thanks, Mister.’ He grinned cheekily and darted off, his bounty gathered up in the tails of his grubby shirt.

That was me once, Nick thought as he watched him go. Ducking and diving around the stalls, looking for something to bring home. Or roaming the streets, collecting bottles to get the deposit, or even shovelling up horse manure to sell. Anything to earn a few pennies to keep his mum happy and his dad from using his fists.

Dora’s charm was still clenched in his hand. He’d let her down. She’d trusted him to get the money for her and he’d failed. He couldn’t bear to think of the disappointment in her eyes when he told her he hadn’t got the money for her books.

‘All right, Nick?’ He looked round. Ruby Pike was picking her way across the cobbles towards him, spectacular curves swaying. She was dressed up to the nines as usual, her blonde hair carefully waved. She looked as if she was coming back from a night out, not a day at work.

He carried on walking and she caught up with him. ‘Lovely day, innit? Not that I’ve seen much of it, stuck behind that machine all day. Honestly, it could be blowing a gale or anything outside, and we wouldn’t know about it . . .’ She chattered on, oblivious to the fact that Nick had stopped listening.

He was lost in his own thoughts, still thinking about Dora.

He would give her the money himself. It was as simple as that. He had always made a strict rule not to take anything out of his American fund, but he knew Dora would pay him back. And besides, his dream was still a long way off. Dora needed the money now or her dream would be over.

‘Are you listening to me, Nick Riley?’ Ruby blocked his path, hands planted on her rounded hips.

‘What?’

‘I knew it. You haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said, have you?’ Ruby pouted her full lips. ‘Here I am, giving you the chance that a lot of men round here would give their right arm for, and you’re not even paying me a bit of attention. I’ve a good mind to tell you to forget it.’

‘Forget what?’ He frowned at her.

‘Taking me out, of course.’ She raked her scarlet-tipped hand through her blonde curls. ‘I’m free tonight, as it happens. Do you fancy taking me out dancing?’

‘I don’t like dancing.’

‘Maybe you just haven’t found the right partner?’ She flashed her eyes at him. Nick moved past her and went on walking.

Ruby fell into step beside him again. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘If you don’t fancy dancing, how about the pictures? They’re showing the new Errol Flynn down at The Rialto. I love Errol Flynn, don’t you?’ she sighed.

‘He’s not my type,’ Nick muttered.

Ruby laughed and batted him playfully on the arm. ‘Oh, you’re a funny one, you are, Nick Riley! Come on, let’s go to the pictures. I’ll even sit on the back row with you, if you like?’

He looked her up and down. She was everything a man could ever want, with her pin-up girl curves and saucy smile. She was right, there were a lot of men in Bethnal Green who would love to get an offer like that from Ruby Pike.

But not him.

‘Some other time,’ he said.

As he walked on, Ruby called after him, ‘How do you know there’ll be another time? I might change my mind, you know.’

But I won’t change mine, Nick thought as he headed home, Dora’s charm still clenched in his fist.