Snow Angels Read online

  He gave her a hard, long look, aware that he was talking more than normal for someone who had earnt himself the reputation, justifiably so, as a grumpy man. He was also aware she wasn’t really listening. She looked as though the wet and the cold had penetrated into her bones as her shiver became a violent tremble. He could also see that it took every ounce of her willpower to try and stop it as she clenched her teeth together. He could smell his supper, a vision of his cooling pie, tantalising him.

  ‘I allow no visitors into the rooms because it’s the best way to keep on top of the bedbugs. Only one person to blame if only one person has slept in the bed – and anyone who does bring them in is out through the door as fast as the mattress. I will give you your own key. I don’t mind what time anyone gets back in at night, mind, I’m not a total tyrant, as long as the door is properly locked. The key is on a wooden paddle, so you don’t lose it; if you do, it’s the same cost as a night’s stay to replace it. There’s a paraffin heater in each room and the paraffin is topped up by Melly when she cleans the rooms. Have you got all that?’ He turned into the parlour doorway and took a key hanging on a large flat block of wood with the number 2 painted in the middle from a brass hook. Is that acceptable?’ He turned to look at her. The colour had left her face altogether and she was frighteningly white. ‘Jesus, I’ve met ghosts with a better pallor than yours,’ he said.

  She chose to ignore him. ‘Anything would be acceptable,’ she said. ‘I just need a room.’

  He picked up a pen on a side table next to the visitors’ book and flicked the top off. ‘Here, can you sign here?’ She was hesitant and looked at the pen as though it might bite her. ‘One of the rules,’ he said as he noted her reluctance. He knew this moment well. It was one he endured often with seamen. Most liked to remain untraceable, under the radar, just in case one of the dockside girls with an unexpected bun in the oven came looking for him. She reached out her hand and scrawled her details and it looked as though a spider had walked across the page, her hand shook so much. He picked up the book, squinted, removed his glasses, squinted again. ‘What’s that address, it’s not in Liverpool, is it?’ He could make out the name, but only just – Eva. It was certainly not a common name around the dock streets. Was that a German name? ‘Is it German? Makes no difference to me, queen. The war is long over and I take in people from everywhere. Melly and I, we like to think of ourselves as being very cosmopolitan.’

  The woman was staring as if in a trance at the letter rack on the table next to the guest book, at a wad of letters held together with a frayed elastic band, faded, yellowing around the edges from the heat of the lamp, leaning up against the wooden box with ‘A Present from Rhyl’ carved into the front and which was stuffed full of airmail letters. He caught her eye.

  ‘Oh, yes, I do take in mail, it’s part of the service for paying guests and he’s a popular sailor, that one. I thought he had a girl in every port until Melly pointed out that they were all from the same person; she could tell by the handwriting. Someone pushed them through the door to begin with and then they started coming from America. One of my regulars, he was. He’s not been here for over a year, but some of these tramp ships will pick up a cargo and take it anywhere in the world, then do the same when they reach “anywhere”. They can be gone for two, three years or more at a time before they come back into Liverpool. Last I heard, that fella’s ship was in the West Indies. Fancy that, eh? The West Indies. I’ve been to a few places myself with the army, but never anywhere that exotic.’

  Malcolm’s head was buried in the visitors’ book, trying to make out her handwriting, when he heard the thud. His mysterious visitor had collapsed in a heap on the floor behind him. Well, she had signed the book and her money was in his pocket so she was his responsibility. ‘Would you credit it,’ he muttered as he squatted down on his haunches before her. He lifted her head and she opened her eyes. ‘You don’t feel well at all, do you love?’ he stated the obvious. She nodded her head. ‘Come on, let me help you up. There’s a very nice pie and mash waiting for you in my parlour and a hot fire – I must have known you were coming. Let’s get this coat dry. I’m not letting you get to your bed until you’ve had a hot meal and a pot of tea inside you and you’ve dried out a bit. I’ll put an extra army blanket on your bed, too, and light the paraffin heater in a minute, to warm up your room.’

  She began to shake her head and tried to push herself up. ‘I can’t be any trouble,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t eat your food.’ He hauled her to her feet and put his arms around her to steady her. He could feel the tremble vibrating through her body. ‘It’s no trouble, honest to God. I get fed up eating Melly’s pies – sick of them, I am. I just wish she would cook me something different every now and then.’ He was lying and she could tell, but as he spoke, his hand cupped her elbow and guided her to the parlour. ‘Look, it’s there, on the table, all ready for you. There’s a nice bit of cheese in the fridge and bread in the kitchen that’ll do me, I won’t go hungry. I had a big lunch and look at this…’ He patted his ample, well-fed belly. ‘Do I look like a starved man? I need to trim this down, not feed it up.’

  He was talking too much, almost gabbling. The pain that often settled on his diaphragm and felt like a deep ache had suddenly lifted, the pain Biddy had told him was a combination of grief and loneliness – and Biddy knew all about that. He suddenly felt lighter. Someone needed him, and despite the interruption to his well-established routine, he didn’t mind, not one little bit. ‘Come on, miss, to the fire with you. Eat – and then you can tell me why it is that out of all the doorsteps in Liverpool, you’ve turned up on mine.’

  As they walked towards the parlour, she turned to take one last glance at the unopened envelopes. She could smell the pie and, despite her desire to be alone in a room and safe, she could not resist. Malcolm turned the dial on the radio and following a hiss and a crackle, the sound of a choir singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ washed over her like a wave and filled her with emotion. She turned to the fire, tears stinging her eyes and she wanted to pinch herself. The pains of hunger in her belly had almost dragged her down along the lino-covered hallway to the food and there before her lay a hot meal. She allowed the man with the warm, cupped hand to guide her by her arm.

  Jacob… The name on the front of the envelope had burnt her eyes, the words in the first letter, engraved on her mind. Jacob, he had never been back, never returned. Jacob wasn’t here.

  Chapter 2

  Madge Jones balanced a tray of glasses as she teetered on her heels into the kitchenette at the back of Matron’s apartment to find Elsie O’Brien, Matron’s housekeeper, at the sink, up to her elbow in soapsuds and Biddy Kennedy, from the nurses’ home, lifting a tray of devils on horseback out of the oven. She pushed the green baize door open with her backside and pirouetted in, carried on a wave of excited chatter and clinking glasses which stopped dead as the door swished closed behind her.

  ‘Has anyone gone home yet?’ asked Elsie, wearily turning her head as Madge placed the tray next to her on the wet wooden draining board which had only just been cleared of the last load of glasses and dishes. Even though Elsie and Biddy were manning the kitchen and supervising the refreshments and had practically spent their entire evening in the kitchen, Madge had remained front of house, as was in keeping with her role of hospital switchboard operator. There was an unspoken ordering of rank at St Angelus, loosely based on dress and appearance. Setting aside the white-coated doctors who had their own hierarchy, it began at the top with Matron, in her smart navy dress, and moved down through the uniformed nursing staff to the probationary nurses in their pink dresses and starched aprons. Among the non-medical staff, those in the porters’ lodge and the operating theatres wore brown coats and there was a distinct and elite group who wore their own clothes to work, like Madge on the switchboard, the secretaries and clerks and it ended at the bottom, with the kitchen, housekeeping and cleaning staff who wore wrap-around aprons. Everyone knew their place in the
St Angelus hierarchy and those who could afford it the least were responsible for wearing their own, freshly laundered apron, every day. Despite being confined to the kitchen by Madge, Elsie had still dressed up for the occasion. This had involved removing her curlers, jigging up the black-dyed, tightly permed curls with the end of a tail comb and applying half a tin of highly perfumed Get Set hairspray, which defied a single hair to move out of place. A stark line of steel-grey roots shone out bravely, courtesy of the bare overhead light encased in a bottle-green glass lampshade, as she bent over the sink. Her thin lips were defined and adorned with ruby-red lipstick and her eyes were framed with charcoal. The cumulative effect made her look much older than her years. Under her customary wrap-around apron dress, she had abandoned her usual hand-knitted wool twinset for a dress she had purchased from a stall on St John’s market and kept for special occasions. Its last outing had been at her grandson’s christening, his father, her son-in-law, Jake Berry the under-porter, was on the other side of the green door in Matron’s sitting room and office, playing the role of a sommelier with a bottle of Spanish sherry, the infamous Golden Knight, or golden shite as it was commonly known amongst the St Angelus’ domestic mafia. Biddy, who had not dressed for the occasion and had walked across from the school of nursing, had made one sartorial concession for the occasion: she had changed her shoes for a pair of slippers.

  Biddy pushed the baize door slightly open and peeped out into the room and the noise of chatter filled the kitchen once more. ‘No, not one bugger is showing any signs of leaving yet and why would they with your son-in-law refilling those glasses every two minutes. Look at him, wearing that jacket and dickie bow! He’s going to burst into song in a minute. He thinks he’s Charles Aznavour, he does. They’re all having too good a time to think about moving. Well, until the golden shite gets them, because it always does. Hits you like a brick just as you get to the fourth glass – and you would know, Elsie.’ The day Elsie had been found asleep on Matron’s sofa, with a yellow duster in one hand and an empty glass in the other, was an issue of such sensitivity it was only ever discussed on the rare occasion she was ill, on a day off, or on holiday, when it was mentioned, always in hushed tones. Elsie controlled the record of the event and Biddy was the only person amongst the St Angelus’ staff who would dare to speak of it in her presence. Elsie sniffed in indignation, but would not take the bait and passed straight over Biddy’s comment as though she hadn’t even spoken.

  ‘Have you got a glass yourself in here tonight, Elsie?’ asked Madge peering around and failing to notice the half-empty glass behind a plate of sausage rolls. Elsie turned the tap on, rinsed a plate, and totally ignored them both. ‘They’ll all need to be carried out at this rate, we don’t want you joining them.’ The plate clattered into the drying rack so loudly no one would have been in the least surprised if it had broken. Biddy kicked the wooden doorstop out from under it and let the kitchen door swing behind her as she retrieved her packet of cigarettes from the front of her apron pocket. ‘Between your Jake’s attendance and Mavis’s cakes, they’ll all be there until Boxing Day at this rate,’ said Madge, who slipped off a shoe and rubbed her toes.

  ‘Bleedin’ hell. I hope not. God forbid they stay a minute after ten,’ said Elsie. ‘I’m half dead on me feet. I’ve been here since half seven this morning and I’ve barely sat down. My veins are killing me and I can’t even feel my feet now. I daren’t take my shoes off because I won’t get them back on again.’ Despite her obvious tiredness, Elsie was as concerned for Matron, the only other woman she knew who worked as hard as she did. ‘Is Matron having a nice time out there? I can’t believe I was the one who said this was a good idea when she said she wanted to have all the doctors and their wives over for Christmas drinks. That was ten years ago and I should have known it would be a load of hard work. But it sounded such a good idea at the time. Trust me and my big gob. Soft girl, I am.’

  Madge reached over to the tray of food cooling on the side and popped a steaming devil on horseback into her mouth, taking a sharp breath and wafting her hand in front of her mouth. Madge was the ‘glamorous lady of a certain age’ at the hospital. In terms of status, her area of responsibility, the switchboard, was as good as having her own office and she had made it so: a small carpet offcut on the floor, to stop her stool on wheels from wandering back; a spider plant on the top of the switching unit, where it caught the light from the arch window above the office door; the kettle and tea caddy, with four matching Queen Anne Ivy-leaf cups and saucers on a side table in the corner. Not the usual national hospital issue for Madge, because Madge was not your usual hospital employee. She was not one of the army of domestics, nor of the medical secretaries or departmental clerks who enjoyed their own rank and status. Madge was alone, both in life and in work, but her switchboard was, in effect, the nerve centre of the hospital and thus afforded her a special status, given that she was first with all the news.

  Madge, as the purveyor of important information, was also queen of the high heels, new hairstyles and fashion. She was the unofficial nod to glamour amongst her peers. Helping Elsie host Matron’s drinks party was no reason to reduce her standards of footwear as she slipped her red high heels back on and clattered across the kitchen floor to pick up a tea towel and begin drying glasses as Elsie rinsed them in hot water under the tap. Biddy moved over to the sink and began to tip the contents of the glasses into a bucket on the floor. And so, side by side the three graces of St Angelus stood, one with her arms in the sink, one with a fag in her mouth, the last with a tea towel in her hands. All three lifted their heads to the window before them, one bleached blonde, one dyed black and the other a proud and untouched steel grey, a red tip glowing in her lips. Their reflections mirrored back at them and Madge leant forward to take a better look and rubbed an imaginary smudge of blue eye shadow from the side of her eye.

  ‘I’ve got that much make-up on, there’d be an avalanche on my face if I cried,’ she said as, leaning back, she picked up another glass.

  Elsie nodded in agreement. ‘You go too heavy on the tutty you do, Madge, all that to catch a fella. I don’t know why you bother, it’s a bit late now.’

  ‘I do,’ said Biddy. ‘She’s never really had one to speak of who was worth having. None of them are, Madge. When will you learn? A good man is like the holy fecking grail. You’ll be searching forever.’

  Madge pursed her lips and looked indignant. ‘Who says it’s to catch a fella? I’m very happy as I am, thank you,’ and then, as if to contradict herself, ‘Where am I gonna find one worth having anyway? I know everyone around here, don’t I? Half of the good ones never came back from the war, the other half were already married. National shortage there is – I read it in the Revellie.’

  Elsie made no response as her heart suddenly tightened in her chest and, catching her breath, she plunged the knitted dishcloth into a dirty pan. Madge was right, but like so many others she would pass no comment. There were too many widows – and she was one. Too many sad stories. Too many fatherless children, broken hearts and absolutely no words to be said because one mention of the war years, one unwitting remark, took all conversation down a path of intense sadness. Best not to comment. So little was said, sometimes, it was as if the war had never happened.

  ‘Is that the last glass, Biddy?’ said Elsie as the hot water stung her hands.

  ‘Aye, it is; and bloody hell, me fag’s soaked,’ exclaimed Biddy as she removed the cigarette from her mouth with wet fingers.

  Elsie handed Madge the pan to dry and pulled the plug out of the sink. As the grey water drained and gurgled away, all three peered out of the window, momentarily lost in their own thoughts, remembering a loss: Elsie, her husband; Madge the boy she’d met at the Cabbage Hall dance, who had promised to return to her on his following leave, but never did, Madge always choosing to believe he had fallen in action, and Biddy, never the husband who had run off with her Belleek tea service and her purse, but always the children she had reared an
d never heard from. They looked beyond their own faces into the cold dark night, the wind so strong, it hurled the fat drops of ice-cold rain against the glass with the force of pebbles. The Mersey, visible from the window by day, was fathomless and indistinguishable through the sheets of white gusting rain. A tug blew its horn and Elsie blessed herself.

  ‘There can’t be anyone out there on a night like this, surely to God.’ She grabbed the crucifix from around her neck and held it to her lips as she chanted, ‘Holy Father and all the saints in heaven, protect all the merchant sailors from Liverpool out in that dreadful weather, God love them and save them and bring them all back home for Christmas.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Biddy as Elsie tucked the cross back into her dress.

  Madge picked up another plate to dry and stack and felt a need to change the mood from gloom to glamour. ‘Tell you what, Biddy is right, your Jake missed his vocation – he’s doing a grand job in there with the bottle of sherry and a tea towel over his arm! Playing to the gallery, he is, and the doctors’ wives, with all their diamonds sparkling, they love him, they do.’ Madge laughed out loud at the antics of Jake who, as she had left, had been extracting a cork from another bottle as he blew a surreptitious kiss to Mrs Mabbutt, the wife of the orthopaedic surgeon, who was already on her fifth glass and was more than a little tipsy. ‘I just heard him telling Mrs Mabbutt it would be easier if she stood next to the sofa to balance herself if she was going to have another top-up. Wobbling all over the place, she was. I said, “What are you doing, Jake?” and he said, “Look Madge, if she sits on the arm of the sofa and she passes out, at least she’ll have a soft landing.”’

  Elsie, leaning back slightly, placed the palm of her hands in the small of her back and winced from the effort of straightening as she laughed at the same time. ‘He doesn’t want to be the one to pick her up. Have you seen the size of her? She’d kill him with the effort. He’s a good lad and, honest to God, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Brings my coal in every night for me and he’s such a good dad to that lad of theirs.’