An Angel Sings Read online

  Matron was tapping her foot impatiently. ‘I swear, you spend as much time drinking tea and chatting to Mrs Tanner, as you do seeing to patients.’

  ‘Now, now,’ he said, ‘you know the wards are just as full as Outpatients and my GP referral list gets bigger every week.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Matron. Just like the late Dr Cohen, Dr Gaskell was a man who had given his life to his patients and refused to let up on the hours he worked.

  ‘Why don’t we take a turn round the park before we head over to Sister Theresa? Blackie needs the walk.’ She genuinely was sorry, but they were old friends, as well as colleagues, and he didn’t take offence.

  ‘That’s quite all right, I can only guess that you have not had a good day.’ Blackie tugged on his lead and growled.

  ‘Have you had a bad day?’

  ‘Yes, interviewing for a new admissions clerk, yet again. This was the third time in six weeks. Not one of them stays.’

  ‘And did you find one?’

  ‘I did, as it happens,’ she said. ‘Some of the girls seemed a bit, oh I don’t know, I suppose, very young. They came in wearing lipstick and were full of big ideas. Some even asked me questions, rather than the other way around.’ She put up her hands to ward off any objections, ‘Oh, I know, I know, I’m a bit old fashioned, but whilst I’m still here, running St Angelus, I shall pick the staff who reflect my values. I’ve offered the job to a girl called Tilly Townsend, who seemed delighted. In fact, she was so delighted, I thought she was going to faint when she stood up. Her parents own a boarding house for professional women and are apparently very strict.’ Matron crossed her fingers behind her back as she spoke. She had been sworn to secrecy. ‘I’ve told Sister Pokey to expect her tomorrow. She’ll be working with Doreen in Casualty until she learns the ropes. After Christmas, Doreen can transfer to clinics and help you.’ The rain had become heavy again. Dr Gaskell put up his umbrella as they reached the park. Matron let Blackie off his lead so that he could sniff about in the bushes.

  ‘That’s two of us with good news, then,’ said Dr Gaskell. ‘I have Dr Cohen starting on Monday and he’s agreed to give us a week on Casualty too. He can transfer to the ward when I return after Christmas.’

  ‘Andrew Cohen? I wondered why he was in the consultants’ sitting room, but isn’t it a year since the accident. He will be working in the room his parents died in. Is he really strong enough to do that? It will be very hard for him.’

  ‘I think so. We’ve talked about it and he seems determined. They say the apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. He’s very like his father, he’s a good doctor.’

  As they walked along the road to the convent, a tram sent up a wave of water that soaked Matron’s feet.

  ‘Oh, drat and blast,’ she said, as she removed a handkerchief from her pocket and bent down to wipe the dirty water splashes from the top of her black lisle stockings.

  ‘Would ye look at the state of ye both.’ They turned to see Sister Theresa, running down the path towards them. ‘Is it not just the worst rain we ever had? Come on, Sister Joseph is toasting your favourite sultana tea cakes, Dr Gaskell, and they will be dripping in butter. There’s scones as well and strawberry jam from the batch we made this summer. Don’t we just need that to remind us of warmer days? Oh and we are all beside ourselves with the decorating and the nativity up at the school.’

  Sister Theresa ushered them in front to let them both walk down the path before her. She glanced nervously over her shoulder and let out a sigh of relief. Tilly had made the bus, she hadn’t been seen.

  Once she had caught up with them at the convent door, in a voice that was full of concern, she gently tugged at Matron’s arm. ‘Matron, I need to have a quiet word with you, in private, about Tilly Townsend.’

  *

  Tilly had run to the convent straight after Matron had offered her the job, through the cloisters, to tell Sister Theresa the news. She was the only person in Tilly’s life who knew everything and was sworn to secrecy. The second time that Tilly had been unable to take school assembly because she was locked in the bathroom vomiting, Sister Theresa had guessed immediately. As headmistress, she could have banished Tilly from her teaching post, but instead had shielded and protected her for as long as she could. This afternoon, Tilly needed her help yet again.

  ‘God in heaven, where have you been?’ Sister Theresa rose from her chair behind her desk and glanced nervously behind where Tilly stood in the doorway. ‘Are ye alone?’

  ‘I am, Mother. I got the job at the hospital. The reference did the job.’ Sister Theresa gestured for Tilly to come in. She had not only been there every step of the way, but had done it often without Tilly’s knowledge. It had not been an easy path with a young woman as hurt, stubborn and proud as Tilly. No longer a young and terrified teacher, no one ever again would persuade her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

  ‘No one will know, move your hand away,’ he had whispered as he pushed her against the wall in her classroom. He had followed her in, slammed the door, pulled at her skirt. She had been frightened, trapped, compliant. He was the Word of God in living form. A panting, red-faced, rough God who ignored her pleas and hurt her while the bookcase rocked, precariously back and forth and the pain seared through her as she silently prayed for forgiveness.

  ‘I got the job,’ Tilly said again. ‘It was the Matron who interviewed me. I start tomorrow, but I have no suitable clothes.’ She couldn’t ask for what she needed, the words stuck in her throat.

  Sister Theresa smiled and blinked back tears. ‘Mother of God, don’t we just have them all,’ she said. She took Tilly’s hand and led her to the linen room where they stored the unwanted clothes of those who took the veil until they were donated to a jumble sale.

  Sister Theresa grabbed a small suitcase. ‘Here, let us fill it,’ she said and hurriedly began to fold quality tweed and twill skirts, cotton and silk blouses. ‘Why didn’t you let us do this before? Here, I have these for Sam.’

  Tilly had refused the parcel of knitted matinée coats and rompers once already, but now she silently acquiesced. When she had nothing, she would accept nothing. Now she had a job, she felt less shame in asking and receiving help.

  ‘Matron thinks I have a family, it was important to her,’ she said.

  Sister Theresa placed her hand over Tilly’s for a brief moment and smiled. She would never lie directly, but she wasn’t above being slightly economical with the truth.

  ‘Will you and Sam come to us for Christmas?’ she asked.

  Tilly shook her head. ‘He will be here.’

  Sister Theresa looked her in the eye. ‘No, he won’t, Tilly. Have you not read the Echo? He is dead. A heart attack. He was found on the floor of the church by the flower ladies, been there all night he had.’

  Tilly shook her head, hardly believing what she was hearing. He was gone, dead? She felt cheated. She had been sustained by the idea that one day, she could take her own revenge. He had beaten her, even in death.

  ‘I still can’t come for Christmas. I have to prove I can manage by myself. Besides, not all the nuns are quite as forgiving as you.’

  They both knew she was talking about Sister Joseph. A lover of cakes, a hater of sinners. Tilly felt guilty at the sight of Sister Theresa’s crestfallen face. ‘Thank you for the clothes, I’m really grateful. The baby clothes are especially lovely.’ She held a blue knitted jacket to her cheek and inhaled the lanoline smell of new wool. ‘We have to make it on our own, Sister Theresa. If I don’t, they’ll take him from me. My parents won’t give up looking, you know that and if they find me, I shall have to tell someone how it happened and who his father was to try and save myself. I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  Sister Theresa wrapped her arms round Tilly. ‘You must understand that you’re not alone, either of you, ever. I am here for you, always.’

  They heard the footsteps of Sister Joseph heading towards the sitting room and her voice talking to one of the no
vices who was pushing the tea trolley. As the door closed, Tilly slipped out the back way. She knew the route well and just made the tram. She was sat in a window seat and almost threw herself onto the floor when she caught sight of Matron and Dr Gaskell on the pavement. As they hurried to the door of the convent, heads bent and tucked under the umbrella, she saw Sister Theresa usher them into the warm golden light beyond the doorway. She swivelled round in her seat and held the suitcase close. She had told Matron lies and felt sick in the pit of her stomach. They had been lies born of necessity. She had loved her teaching job, but no single mother would ever be offered respectable employment anywhere. The only way she could hold this job down and her head high, would be to keep herself right out of Matron’s way and her secrets and lies close to her heart.

  2

  ‘Andrew, is that the phone?’ Mrs Hope’s voice called up the stairs from the kitchen in the basement.

  Andrew was sitting in front of the fire in his parents’ house in Faulkner Street, and was annoyed to have his concentration interrupted.

  ‘It usually is,’ he muttered, ‘unless I have begun to communicate in a ringtone,’ knowing full well she could not hear him. He had spent the whole time since his interview reading back through the notes he had made in medical school and had just finished, ‘The eradication of tuberculosis in Liverpool’ and was about to start ‘The advancement of antibiotic therapy in the treatment of upper respiratory tract infections.’ The lectures had been delivered by Dr Gaskell himself.

  He heard footsteps on the stairs and removed the dark framed glasses that his sister, Jennifer, insisted enhanced his looks, making him look both sexy and clever. He ran his fingers through his mop of dark hair, which although parted and brushed to one side, never stayed in place and almost always flopped down over the kind dark brown eyes he had inherited from his mother. His chin was his father’s, strong and square and as the light faded, was already darkening with stubble. Scratching his chin once again, he contemplated growing a beard, like his father.

  The phone was still ringing, shrill and impatient. It would undoubtedly be Jennifer, and Mrs Hope, the housekeeper, would want to speak to her first. He leaned forward in his chair and laying down his notes next to the ashtray on the side-table, lit his cigarette. As he looked out onto the Georgian brick buildings of Faulkner Street, the sulphur street lights flickered into an amber glow, lighting the way for schoolchildren on their way home. He heard the handset click and the ringing cease, as Mrs Hope finally answered the telephone. She was breathless from her run up the stairs.

  ‘Hello, Jennifer, it’s you, how are you and Robert and the little rascals? How were they in the nativity play, did little Robert behave?’

  Since his parents’ tragic death, Mrs Hope had taken it upon herself to care for Andrew day and night, and even though he hated to admit it, he was grateful, almost as grateful as his sister, Jennifer, who would no doubt be wanting to discuss arrangements for his Christmas duty visit to Edinburgh. Jennifer had studied in Edinburgh and married her own doctor, a Catholic GP. She had converted and left their old religion behind. New to the celebration and excitement of Christmas, she lived for it and counted down the days, now that her own children were of an age to appreciate what was happening. Last year, they had struggled through, for the sake of the boys and it had hurt.

  Andrew sighed as he poured himself two fingers of whisky, something he had watched his father do so many times. He took comfort from taking the same glass from the same sideboard and standing in front of the same fireplace.

  Now there was a slight tap on the door. Without waiting for an answer, Mrs Hope opened it and said, ‘It’s Jennifer, come along now, long distance phone calls are expensive.’

  ‘Andrew, you are so hard to get hold of.’ His sister always began their conversations with a complaint.

  ‘No, I’m not, Jennifer, it’s just that I am not always in when you call.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s a good thing, I like you getting out.’ Jennifer refused to be put off. ‘Did you get the registrar post? You promised me you would call and you haven’t.’ Her second complaint.

  ‘I did. I start after the Christmas holiday.’ He decided there and then not to tell her he would be working on Casualty. ‘And I’m going to be helping out on the ward until I leave to come to you at Christmas.’

  ‘Oh, he got it!’ she exclaimed to her husband. ‘We didn’t really need a reason for a party at Christmas, but now we have one. Congratulations, I am so proud of you. We all are.’ There was a moment’s silence, a sadness, words left unspoken. ‘Mrs Hope says she is going to pack your case for you. We have a big party planned on Boxing Day. So many people want to meet you and you won’t be surprised to hear, one or two of them may just be free and single, and just up your street. In fact, the new secretary at the practice…’

  Andrew groaned and cut her off, ‘Jennifer, stop. I really have to go now. Lots to do, I’m starting in the morning, have to be up early… bye.’ Would his sister ever stop match-making? There was nothing he dreaded more.

  As Jennifer replaced the receiver, she turned to her husband. ‘I can’t bear to think of him in that big house all alone.’

  Robert put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. ‘Jennifer, he isn’t. Mrs Hope loves living there and looking after him.

  ‘Yes, but, he doesn’t have what I have. I have you, he has no one.’ Robert hugged her and felt the familiar annoyance at the thought of Andrew’s previous girlfriend, the only female medical student in Andrew’s year, who left him within weeks of his parents’ death. A sad and grieving man was not what she had signed up to and she very quickly moved on, spoilt for choice, young and pretty and hungry for life. Still, Robert supposed it wasn’t her responsibility to hold the grieving and broken family together. That was his job.

  3

  In Upper Parliament Street, Tilly Townsend ran in through the front door of the house and as always, held her hand over her mouth to ward off the initial impact of the smell. She kicked the sack of rubbish at the bottom of the stairs in order to pass. It was filled with rotting food and on the floor next to the door, stood an enamel bucket full of stinking nappies soaking in Napisan. The sack belonged to the couple who rented the ground floor. They had left it in the hallway because they were too lazy to take it outside to the bins, or the nappies to the old copper boiler at the back. No one who rented in Upper Parliament Street could afford one of the new twin tubs.

  As Tilly kicked the sack, she thought she heard something move inside and with a shudder, pushed past Sam’s battered pram, dragging the suitcase up the stairs, taking them two at a time, to the single room she rented on the top floor. Her landlady Mrs Kelly lived on the first floor and made an effort to keep the top of the house in better order.

  Sam was only fourteen weeks old and Tilly had left him with Mrs Kelly, against her better judgement. She hated to leave him with anyone, fearing a knock on the door when she wasn’t there. No one was going to take Sam away from her if she could help it. This was the nightmare that haunted her, the idea of the welfare state, reaching out and tearing him from her arms while she tried to cling on. But what else could she do? They had left the mother and baby home in Bootle two weeks earlier. Sister Theresa had found this place for her, as far away from her parents as possible, but close enough for Sister Theresa to be able to keep an eye on her. Now she had to make a life for them both. As she opened the door, she gasped with relief. Sam was asleep in the wooden drawer, where she had left him.

  ‘Oh, you’re, back are you?’ She heard Mrs Kelly dragging her feet up the stairs behind her. ‘How did you get on? That’ll be a shilling you owe me for looking after him while you were gone. Mind you, he was no trouble like, but all the same.’

  Mrs Kelly stood in the doorway as Tilly bent and scooped Sam up from the drawer. The room was so small that two people could only fit if Tilly sat on the bed. Sam opened his eyes in surprise, smiled as his eyes met hers and began to cry.

  ‘Mrs
Kelly, his nappy is sopping wet,’ Tilly said, deftly flicking open the towel she used to change him on and laying it on the small Formica table under the window.

  She almost cried at the sight of his red skin. She had only been gone for five hours. She glanced at her own nappy bucket, as empty as she had left it. He had not been changed. The bottle of formula she had left on the cold shelf of the press was still full.

  ‘Have you not fed him?’ she asked, her eyes wide and disbelieving.

  Sam had been born weighing over eight pounds. ‘A roast dinner won’t satisfy him,’ Sister Theresa had exclaimed, the minute he was born and he had remained hungry ever since.

  ‘He didn’t want it. I tried him, honest to God. He didn’t wanna know. You know me, I ‘ave a soft spot for that little fella. Turned his head away, he did. Anyway, how did you get on? Did you get it? Your rent is due on the first of January. If it’s charity you’re after, you will have to go back to the nuns. I’ve got me bills to pay.’

  Tilly felt anger burning her up inside, as she held Sam over the bowl of cold water she had left for Mrs Kelly. There was no time to boil a kettle, either to wash him, or to warm the bottle. She needed to clean and feed her baby before she even removed her coat. Life in the mother and baby home in Bootle may have been tough, but they had taught her all she needed to know. Now she wrapped him in the towel, flopped onto the single bed and placed the bottle in her baby’s mouth. He guzzled, hungry, large blue eyes searching her face, asking, where have you been?

  Mrs Kelly walked to the window and looked down onto the pub across the road. Tilly noted that she had recently dyed her hair jet black. It had been a white marbled auburn when Tilly first arrived. It hung down now in thin and greasy lanks onto her shoulders.

  ‘I haven’t got all day, have you got me shilling there, love?’ she pleaded, impatient.