The Angels of Lovely Lane (41 page)

‘Go on then, one last wave,’ said the ambulance driver, swinging the wheelchair round to face Pammy before performing a perfect pirouette towards the exit and the waiting ambulance.

Just as she was about to go back into the ward, Pammy saw Dessie pushing a trolley from the opposite direction. A nurse from Casualty ran alongside him, holding a set of case notes and carrying a glass drip bottle. Pammy immediately noted the look of concern on their faces and in a fast heel-toe trot made her way to the cubicle and Staff Nurse Bates.

‘She’s on her way,’ she said. ‘I can see them coming down the corridor.’

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the ward doors burst open. ‘Straight into cubicle one,’ said Staff Nurse Bates, and the trolley immediately swung left into the cubicle. Seconds later, the nurse and the new Casualty doctor Anthony Mackintosh hurried in behind them. ‘Close the door,’ snapped Dr Mackintosh to Dessie. ‘The fewer people who know about this sorry mess, the less chance there is of the police at the door. Who’s in charge here?’

‘I am,’ said Staff Nurse Bates.

‘We have no idea how she got to the hospital in this state. She just turned up on a chair in the waiting room. We have no name or age, nothing. She seems to be mute and it looks as though an amateur abortionist has inserted a catheter through the cervix and then tried to flush the foetus out with a mixture of carbolic and water. I have nothing to go on other than the burns and the smell. When will these witches realize, that if a lay person wants to kill a developed foetus they have to kill the mother first? If it was so easy, there would be no need for caesarean sections. We could deliver babies on demand.’

Pammy and Staff could tell he was angry.

Just as Dr Mackintosh finished speaking, the patient came round and began to scream. It was the most terrifying noise Pammy had ever heard. She felt her own internal organs crunch in response and her arms prickled with goosebumps. The girl screamed again, long, pitiful, horrifying. It chilled the air as the patients in the ward ceased to chatter and silence fell.

Pammy must have looked as scared as she felt.

‘Her uterus has been distended,’ whispered the nurse from Casualty, who was still holding the drip bottle. ‘It’s the most painful thing any human being can experience, to have a hollow organ distended. Though this one seems to have a seven-month-old baby inside. A curse of women, of course. Couldn’t happen to a man.’

When the screaming subsided, the doctor took the patient’s pulse. His brow furrowed as he concentrated.

‘We have listened to the foetal heart in Casualty,’ he said. ‘Amazingly, it’s still beating, but it’s too fast. The foetus is distressed and so is the mother. She has stopped bleeding, but only just, and this baby is definitely coming, and why wouldn’t it? It can’t feel very safe in there with someone trying to force carbolic water down its mouth. Probably fancies its chances a little better on the outside. But we have seven births on Maternity today, so there’s no room up there.’

‘So, she’s around twenty-eight weeks, then?’ asked Staff Nurse Bates.

‘Aye, she is, twenty-eight weeks and alive. It’s a miracle. The procedure she has been through can induce primary obstetric shock and it’s instant. Blood pressure falls into their boots and they end up in heart failure. She is so young, too, to have survived such an ordeal, but let’s not count our chickens, eh? We’ve a long way to go till this young girl is out of the woods. Her bladder may have been perforated, her bowel even. It’s too soon to tell. She is in the danger zone at present, and all we really know is that there’s a premature baby on the way who is so distressed it will probably be dead before delivery, and that for some reason this young girl desperately wanted to be rid of it.’

‘Are there any internal injuries we should know about?’

‘Oh, aye, the carbolic solution the abortionist used to flush out the baby was far too concentrated. The girl is burnt and blistered to bits internally and probably the lining of the uterus is in the same state. The abortionist managed to break in through the amniotic sac, but the cervix is rock hard.’

‘How do you know she didn’t do it herself?’

‘I don’t, for sure, but can you imagine any woman being able to do this to herself? At the very least, the baby, if it lives, will be blistered and probably blind.’ Pammy thought the doctor was about to cry.

The patient opened her eyes and focused on Pammy. Her pain appeared to have ebbed and a feeling of calm momentarily filled the room.

‘Do we know how long?’ Staff Nurse Bates asked the Casualty nurse.

‘We don’t, I’m afraid. It could be twenty minutes or twenty hours. Look, I’m taking a patient up to Maternity in a minute. I’ll see if they have a spare midwife who can come down and help, but with deliveries on the way in it’s not likely. I don’t know what they’ve put in the water in Liverpool. The number of pregnant women coming into St Angelus is ridiculous and almost more than we can cope with. Who was it who decided that hospital was a safer place than home to give birth? They must have been mad.’

Half an hour later, the room was calmer as Pammy, left alone with the patient, checked her charts were in order.

‘Hello there,’ she said to the frightened young girl, who looked vulnerable and frail. Her skin was pale. Beads of perspiration stood proud on her top lip and across her eyebrows. Pammy slipped her hand into hers. It was cold and damp.

‘Well, you are the mystery one. You just turned up out of nowhere and had no one with you, they said, and in the pain you were in too. Was there really no one with you? Come on then, love, what’s your name at least?’

The girl looked at her through wide and frightened eyes but didn’t speak a word.

‘You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want to. Don’t worry. You just catch your breath and take your time. Tell you what, shall I fetch you a cuppa? A piece of toast? Something nice and warm?’

Pammy saw the girl’s eyes fill with tears. ‘Hey, come on,’ she said, and although it was against Sister Antrobus’s very strict rules she sat on the side of the bed and took both the girl’s hands in her own.

‘Don’t cry, love. I know this is awful and I don’t know all the details, but Mr Scriven is the consultant on this ward and he’s the top man on call today. He’s the best, so they say. He will come and see you soon, I’m sure.’

Pammy wasn’t really sure she actually believed this. Mr Scriven had a reputation for being less than charming towards his patients, but she desperately wanted to say something to reassure this young girl, to wipe away the look of terror from her eyes. But her words had the opposite effect.

At the mention of Mr Scriven’s name, the patient clasped Pammy’s hand. ‘No,’ she hissed. She could say no more before she was seized by another contraction.

This girl was too young to go through this, thought Pammy. The pain was just too severe. Something was definitely wrong. ‘There, there, my love,’ she whispered. ‘Breathe and blow through your mouth, and it will pass quickly. The doctors will be here soon.’

Pammy’s kindness seemed only to make things worse. The girl let out a stifled sob.

Pammy peered inside her bag, to check for a nightdress or toiletries. Had she expected to be admitted? There were no overnight things and the ring on her wedding finger was almost falling off. If Pammy had to guess, she would say it was neither gold nor the girl’s. It looked more like a curtain ring from Woolworths and Pammy wouldn’t have minded betting that it was.

‘Do you want to talk to me?’ she asked in a tender voice. ‘I won’t say anything to anyone. Everything here is strictly confidential, if that’s what you’re worried about. Cross me heart.’ She made a sign of the cross on her chest and smiled at the girl. ‘You look to me like you need a shoulder to cry on.’

‘I can’t. I’m not allowed.’ Again, the young girl emitted a stifled sob.

‘Oh, God, come here, queen,’ said Pammy as she scooped her up into her arms.

The gesture released a flood of tears and the girl sobbed violently in Pammy’s arms. Pammy knew that if Sister Antrobus walked into the room, or even if Staff Nurse were to catch her hugging this young patient, they would disapprove of such a personal display of comfort. Her actions were unprofessional. She knew it and she didn’t care.

‘I’m frightened.’ The words sounded tortured and pathetic and were whispered into Pammy’s shoulder.

Once the first torrent of tears had subsided, Pammy held the girl a little away from her, while still holding her gently by the arms.

‘Do you have a mam? Is there anyone I can contact to let them know you’re here, in St Angelus? What’s your name, queen? Are you going to tell me?’

The girl shook her head, with such conviction that Pammy realized there was no point in pressing her.

‘OK. Well look, I’m going to leave you for one minute, to find out what you can eat and drink and get you a bedpan, but I will be back in a jiffy, so don’t worry.’

She plumped up the pillows with one hand, supporting her patient with the other, and laid her back with tenderness.

As Pammy headed to the office in search of Staff Nurse Bates, the senior staff nurse marched past her with the drugs trolley.

‘Have you seen Branna?’ she asked in a voice loaded with new-found self-importance. ‘That woman treats ward two as a social club. She never stops chatting to the patients and when she isn’t wasting time doing that, she’s harvesting gossip from the porters’ lodge.’

‘The ward is lovely and clean though,’ said Pammy, looking down at the shining floor.

Staff Nurse sniffed and looked down her nose. ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, Nurse Tanner. If you see Branna, please tell her I’m looking for her.’

Feeling deflated, Pammy walked into the office just as Staff Nurse Bates put down the phone. ‘God, I can’t believe it. She’s almost as bad as the Anteater. She’s just near bitten me nose off.’

‘Yes, well, never mind Miss Bossy Knickers. She’s only a year ahead of me and I get it too. I’ve just spoken to Sister on Casualty. Our mystery patient arrived on her own. They didn’t notice her until someone saw her sitting crying on one of the seats. There was a puddle of blood under the seat, apparently. Mr Scriven is being very evasive on the telephone. His light has been up for ever and he only just called me. Said he’ll be down presently.’

‘What do we do then?’ asked Pammy. ‘She wouldn’t tell me anything either, but she’s just had a good cry.’

‘I’m damned if I know. I’ve never had a nameless patient before. Let’s start with the usual procedures. You set up the examination trolley for when the doctor arrives. Put a jug of chlorhexidine solution on it while we wait for our masters to let us know what’s going on and who this poor terrified creature is. They’re sending a delivery pack down from Maternity. Keep an eye on the drip, it’s there to keep a vein open in case they need to give her any drugs.’

‘A delivery pack?’ asked Pammy with a hint of surprise in her voice.

‘Yes, well, we are delivering a baby. She is at twenty-eight weeks’ gestation, or thereabouts. No one can say if this baby will be born dead or alive. Your Lorraine survived. This one may do and could be your first delivery.’

Pammy rushed to set up her trolley in the clean utility room, as she had been taught. She mentally checked off each item and prayed there was nothing she had forgotten as she counted out her speculums.

‘Sims’, Cusco’s, Ferguson’s, a uterine sound, rubber gloves, three enamel kidney dishes, sterilized rubber gloves and a towel. Yes, that’s it,’ she whispered and popped into the sluice room for a warm bedpan from the hot pipes. She slipped it into the paper cover and on to the bottom layer of the examination trolley and filled a large metal jug with the chlorhexidine solution.

As Pammy pushed her trolley back towards the cubicle, she bumped into Branna leaving the domestics’ room. ‘Branna. Where have you been? Staff Nurse is looking for you and she’s in a right strop. On the war path for you she is.’

‘Well now, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Looking for me in a strop, is she now. I knew her when she first started here. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose, she wouldn’t, terrified of her own shadow she was and now she orders everyone about, those who let her get away with it. Where are you rushing to with that trolley? Sure, you will slip on me wet floor if you don’t slow down.’

‘We have a mystery patient in the cubicle. Just waiting for a doctor and some notes to arrive, so we know what to do next. Hasn’t spoken a word she hasn’t. Poor thing is terrified.’

‘Aye, well, sure, ’tis a mystery to some maybe,’ said Branna. ‘I’m off to the school to see me mate Biddy. If Staff Nurse asks again, tell her I’m on me break.’

‘But you’ve just had a break,’ said Pammy.

‘Yes, well, I’m having a second one now. I don’t save lives like you lot so I don’t, and while the cat’s away I’ll make the most of it. Besides, I have important business to see Biddy about and it cannot wait. Mysteries and secrets everywhere they are.’

Pammy looked at Branna suspiciously. She was hiding something. But there was no time to wonder what.

Staff Nurse Bates walked out of the cubicle. ‘Don’t leave her. I think it will be best if we make sure that there’s always one of us with her. I’m not happy about this case. I wouldn’t trust this one not to run away. She looks like a scared cat.’

‘I’ll get her a cuppa and some toast from the kitchen,’ said Pammy.

‘Yes, well, it will give her some strength,’ said Staff Nurse Bates. ‘The poor thing is going to need it, in more ways than one.’

Pammy tried again to get the mystery girl to talk to her, after she had gratefully eaten the tea and toast. ‘So, are you from around here then, love? Or have you travelled far?’ She talked about everything other than why the young woman was actually lying in the bed in an attempt to encourage her to provide them with some information.

Some of the other nurses were bristling with disapproval. They could barely conceal their moral indignation. ‘I would refuse to nurse a case like that,’ one of them said to Pammy as she passed her on the ward. ‘Tell them you are a Catholic and it’s against your religion. You’ll have to go to confession, you know.’