The Angels of Lovely Lane (9 page)

Biddy jumped in. ‘How can he afford the rent and everything else? The place is falling apart. They have the river damp in that house, I know that. I’ve been in and their range was more damaged than mine in the war.’

‘Ah, well, now, that’s where the real secret comes in. Our young Jake, he won on the pools.’

‘He won on the pools?’ Elsie and Biddy shrieked together.

‘Aye, he did that, almost a month ago. He won over three hundred pounds.’

‘Over three hundred pounds!’ the cry went up in unison.

Dessie began to laugh. ‘You should see the faces on both of you. Oh, God, you’re killing me. Pass me me ciggies, Bid.’

Biddy slid Dessie’s Capstan full strength across the Formica tabletop towards him. Her mind was racing. She had never met anyone who had won on the pools.

Dessie took his time lighting up. It was usually Biddy or Elsie who imparted the gems of Sunday-night gossip.

‘Look, he came to see me when he won. Said he had been desperate to ask Martha out, but knowing he could never afford to give her a home of her own he wasn’t sure, like. Wanted to wait until he became an under-porter and got a better wage. I told him, don’t wait too long, lad, or someone else will dive in there. She’s a cracker is Martha.’

Elsie drew herself up to her full height and grinned. Biddy scowled. Not that Biddy begrudged Martha a little happiness. God knew, the girl had helped her out often enough. It was the cat that had got the cream smugness on Elsie’s face that irritated her. Friend or not, Elsie had so much more than Biddy to look forward to. A wedding, grandchildren and a growing family living nearby, whereas Biddy had nothing and no one. She had heard that one of her sons had married and was living in a place called Wandsworth, but that was six years ago and she hadn’t heard a peep since. Not even a Christmas card.

Biddy looked at her cooker. Her only advantage. Right now, it gave her cold comfort.

‘He hasn’t told no one. Not even your Martha yet, but that’s going to change. He said he’ll tell her before he starts to do the house up. Said he’s going to go in there every night after work, and when it’s ready he’s going to pop the question to your Martha and keep fifty pound back for a big wedding and a knees up at the Irish centre. So bob’s your uncle. Your Martha has a good lad there, Elsie.’

Biddy had known what was coming; Elsie pretended she hadn’t, and gasped. Everyone had always known that one day the two best-looking kids in the neighbourhood would marry. Jake had eyes as dark as his hair and Martha, petite and frail with her deep chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, had always been hanging off his hand when they played in the streets as kids.

‘Isn’t that wonderful? Biddy, did you hear that? Jake Berry is going to propose to our Martha and he’ll have a house all done for her.’

Biddy collected the plates and stood to carry them to the sink and fetch a knife for the apple pie. Her evening wasn’t turning out quite as she had hoped. Neither of the others had mentioned the fact that her new cooker had kept the plates nice and warm, or that the crust on the apple pie was the same colour all round and not black on one side and underbaked on the other, as it had been for years.

‘I heard. And I hope it keeps fine for him. Jake is a good lad, everyone knows that. Sure, I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about him. Your Martha will be a very lucky girl.’

The smile dropped from Elsie’s face. ‘Well, I think ’twill be Jake who is the lucky one,’ she bristled.

‘Anyway, ladies.’ Dessie could sense a change in the atmosphere. He hated it when Biddy and Elsie argued and they frequently did, often over the most ridiculous things. He knew they were best friends and yet they were riddled with jealousy, although they all had so little he had no idea what they found to envy. His wife had hit the nail on the head before he had left to fight in the war.

‘The problem is, Des, neither of them have nowt and so every little thing becomes something big. Especially with that Biddy, and she has a big gob that one. I’d never trust her.’

In fact, Dessie’s wife had never trusted Biddy because she refused to go to the pub with the other women on a Friday night. The subtlety of the one-upmanship was lost on Dessie. He had seen friends blown to bits and found it hard to appreciate the significance of owning a New World cooker or boasting about a pretty daughter. Especially when his best mate, Elsie’s dead husband, no longer supped with him in the Red Admiral on a Saturday night. Now he wanted to change the subject, fast.

‘Anyway, as I said, it is one very big secret, and our secrets stay here in this kitchen, don’t they?’ Biddy and Elsie detected the tone of censure in Dessie’s voice and bowed their heads, Biddy with a frown, Elsie unable to wipe the smile from her face. Dessie seized another snippet of news to bring things back on track.

‘You have the new nurses intake starting in the morning, don’t you, Biddy? You’ll be run off your feet, then?’

‘That’s right. I doubt they will be any different from the last lot.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Elsie, seizing her moment to be back on top. ‘Matron was furious about some of the girls your Sister Haycock has put on this course.’

Biddy was suddenly all ears. Sister Haycock was the director of nursing and had only been in post for a year, but in that year she had won Biddy’s fierce loyalty. Sister Haycock was like Biddy, alone in the world, and even though Biddy was only the housekeeper at the school of nursing she would not hear anyone say a bad word about the new director.

‘Oh really, and why would that be, Elsie? And since when was Matron ever happy about anything?’

‘Well, I heard her on the telephone when I was polishing the brass. I think she was talking to one of the trustees. She said some of the girls weren’t up to standard. “Not the usual sort,” she said, and she was going to be keeping an eye on this intake as she felt your Sister Haycock had overstepped the mark by taking in girls from Ireland for the registered nurse course. “Not the St Angelus standard,” she said.’

Biddy was ready to fire back at Elsie, but she kept her own counsel. She had to watch Sister Haycock’s back for her, and her best source of information was Elsie: her own personal plant in Matron’s office. Biddy knew that Matron was Sister Haycock’s biggest enemy, and a dangerous enemy at that.

‘Did she now? Well, that’s interesting. Let me know if she says anything else, would you, Elsie?’

Elsie was spooning a large chunk of apple pie into her mouth and nodded. Elsie loved the gossip and didn’t share Biddy’s strong sense of loyalty towards her own boss. ‘Oh, I will, Biddy. I will that.’

Harmony restored, Dessie turned to Biddy. ‘Turn the radio up, Biddy.’ As Biddy leaned over to twist the dial, Dessie added, ‘It’s a lovely crust on this pie tonight. Best I’ve ever tasted.’

Biddy smiled, rinsed with pleasure, and silence descended as the sound of the Stargazers drifted into the kitchen.

*

Matron stood at the window of the sitting room in her flat and looked out over the empty hospital car park. What visitors there had been that evening had long since gone. The theatres and Casualty were quiet, but the hospital never slept. The radio played quietly in the background as she picked up her beloved Scottie dog, Blackie, and stroked his head, staring down at the rain bouncing off the porch roof over the main hospital entrance below.

‘I think it’s going to snow soon, Blackie,’ she whispered to the dog, who, hearing his name, tipped his head towards her.

There was a time when the upper corridor had been filled with sisters who lived in. She could still sometimes hear the sound of the piano, the shuffle of shoes along the polished concrete, the whispers of colleagues long gone, but she knew it was only the ghosts of memories. The days of live-in sisters had ended with the war. Most of the rooms along the corridor now stood empty, waiting for the occasional visitor, or were used as offices. At night they were filled with a deathly, lonely quiet.

Sitting down at her desk, she tucked Blackie on to her knee and wrote a note to Sister Antrobus on ward two, inviting her for supper. It wouldn’t seem that unusual. They were both single women and she had a notion that Sister Antrobus was very much like herself. The woman had the most fearsome reputation in the entire hospital, and it was not something Matron discouraged. She was aware that Sister Antrobus had a very particular manner, was a little too forceful when expressing her opinions maybe, and it was possible that her standards were a little too exacting for the probationary nurses, given the drop-off rate, but, all things considered, the two of them got along very well. Matron hoped they had many more things in common than nursing.

‘Nothing wrong with that, is there, Blackie?’ she said as she licked the flap on the envelope before writing Sister Antrobus’s name on the front. They were the first words she had spoken out loud all day. Yes, there was nothing wrong with an invitation to supper. She had to do something to end the yearning loneliness which sat in her heart. She hugged Blackie to her to quell the ache and turned up the radio as the first strains of the Stargazers filled her empty rooms.

Victoria Baker was kneeling on the floor by the side of her bed, packing clothes in her suitcase while her aunt Minnie ticked each item off the list.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever even owned a watch with a second hand,’ said Aunt Minnie, lifting the navy blue velvet lid of the box that contained the Ingersoll fob watch and peering in. ‘Oh, yes I have. The Cartier I got from your grandparents for my twenty-first had one. You should have that. It’s in my jewellery box in London.’

Victoria packed the last few items laid out on her bed and leapt to her feet. She was leaving to catch the train to Liverpool in less than two hours.

She wandered over to the window and, looking out, saw Roland Davenport’s car winding its way up the long driveway towards Baker Hall.

‘Roland is on his way up the drive,’ she said over her shoulder to Aunt Minnie, who rose from the bed, crossed the floor and placed her arm around her niece’s shoulders.

‘It feels strange to me that we only met Roland a few weeks ago, and yet here he is, transporting you to the station.’

‘Well, it doesn’t to me,’ said Victoria. ‘Anyway, it was you who asked him to sort everything out.’ She moved to the dressing table in case Roland saw her watching and attempted to rewind the long tendrils of blonde hair that had escaped her chignon, fixing them in place with a pin she selected from a pretty glass dish.

‘Does my hair look all right?’ she asked.

‘You look lovely, my dear,’ said Aunt Minnie. ‘I really just cannot believe you are doing this. For once, I agree with your father. I blame your mother.’

‘Well, I’ve no idea what else I could possibly do that would be useful. I would only get under your feet in London and besides, I’m just not ready to leave the north. Mother hated London and I’m very like her, you know.’

Victoria Baker, daughter of the sixth Lord Baker, was about to leave the life she knew to begin her nurse training at St Angelus hospital in Liverpool. Her perception of nursing had been wholly informed by the days she had spent as a child accompanying her mother when Lady Baker had visited the war wounded on the estate. Eight-year-old Victoria would help her mother load up the baskets on the fronts of their bicycles with food and basic medical supplies, doing her best to follow Lady Baker’s instructions: ‘Pack so the weight is balanced, Victoria. We have enough injuries without your adding more by falling off.’ Before they cycled away, her mother would study the sheet of paper upon which she had written her list and say, ‘Righty oh, darling, let’s check who we are to visit today, shall we, and plan out our route?’

Those days of collusion and caring spent with her mother had been the most joyful time of Victoria’s childhood. They had cycled out with pies and biscuits, fruit from the orchard and eggs from the hens who roosted in the stables. Her mother, who had never in her life made her own bed, plumped up pillows, straightened sheets and mopped brows. In the evenings, they made bandages and over-dressings from old sheets in the linen room.

They visited villages Victoria had only ever ridden through on her pony, accompanied by a stable boy. On two days a week, they joined a knitting and sewing circle to make socks and pullovers for the injured. The lads of Lancashire who had returned from the war with injuries would not want for anything Victoria’s mother could provide, and she did much of her work with her only daughter at her side, watching and learning in awe and wonder. When Victoria thought of her mother today, it was those days she recalled first. The bloom on her cheeks when they returned from a long Sunday visiting her war wounded. The happiness in her voice when Mrs Armitage from Bolton came to the door with detailed instructions for the week ahead. It was the first time in her life Lady Baker had felt needed, and she relished the challenge to do something useful, the only thing she could do, to help.

One thing never discussed at Baker Hall was the fact that the money had run out. Victoria’s father found it almost impossible to accept that they could no longer afford to employ staff or even to fix the roof, which was now leaking in a dozen different places. It seemed to Victoria as though the rot had set in once the war had ended, but in reality it had begun long before. The war had simply provided a distraction. If her mother was busy attending to the wounded, she had no time to face the problems waiting at her own front door.

Baker Hall sat at the foot of the moors, far enough from Bolton to make a regular visit to town difficult, and looked just like a stately home with its towering walls and porticos and formally laid out gardens. The buildings adjacent to the house dated from the fifteenth century and included the original hall where Elizabeth I and her retinue had lodged on their travels through the north-west. There had even been a moat, although that was grassed over now. The grandeur of days long gone was everywhere to be seen, but behind the façade the truth was very different. When Victoria turned eighteen and the war-broken government was banging on the door for the final instalment of her grandfather’s death duties, it was difficult for Victoria’s father to see beyond the financial calamity before him. The estate was crumbling. There was only so much one man could do to keep the show on the road. The old and incompetent estate manager had to be let go, and the bottle became Lord Baker’s new friend.