The Nightingale Girls (2 page)

‘Obviously it’s your decision, Matron,’ Miss Hanley conceded stiffly. ‘But I have to say, girls of that class seldom do well as nurses. They simply don’t have the character for it.’

‘Oh, I don’t think Miss Doyle is short of character.’ Kathleen lifted the teacup to conceal her smile.

She wondered what Miss Hanley would say if she knew that Kathleen was once just like Dora Doyle, a millworker’s daughter from a small Lancashire town, who had dreamed of something beyond life in the blowing room of a cotton mill. She too had once sat across the desk from a forbidding-looking Matron and begged for the chance to show what she could do. And now look at her. Barely forty and already in charge of the nursing staff of one of the country’s top teaching hospitals. Sometimes she had to pinch herself to believe it was true. Not everyone approved, of course. She knew there were some people at the Nightingale who thought that she and her newfangled ideas would lead to the ruination of the hospital’s good name.

Change was a dirty word at the Nightingale. The hospital had been run the same way for the last thirty years, under the iron rule of its old Matron. And when
she retired, many had believed Miss Hanley was the natural choice to carry on her good work – including Miss Hanley herself. But the Board of Trustees decided the Nightingale needed new blood, and so Kathleen had been appointed instead.

Now, after a month in the job, she still felt like the new girl. She could hear the whispers of the senior staff following her down the corridors as she did her morning rounds, everyone wondering what to make of the new Matron, who smiled too much and talked to the young nurses in the same friendly way she did to the senior consultants.

It didn’t help that Miss Hanley didn’t miss a chance to remind her: ‘That really isn’t the way we do things here at the Nightingale, Matron.’

She went to look out of the window. Beyond the gracious Georgian façade of its main building which fronted the road overlooking Victoria Park, the Nightingale Hospital was a sprawl of blocks, extensions and outbuildings arranged loosely around a central paved courtyard with a small cluster of plane trees at its centre. These housed the wards, the operating block and the dispensary. Beyond them lay more buildings, including the dining rooms, nurses’ homes and the doctors’ quarters.

Up until a few weeks ago her office had also been situated down there. But when she took over as Matron, Kathleen had insisted on moving into the main hospital building so she could be closer to the wards.

It had caused much consternation among the senior nursing staff. ‘Why does she need to keep an eye on us?’ the disgruntled sisters asked amongst themselves – stirred up, Kathleen suspected, by Miss Hanley. But it was worth the trouble. She was now in the heart of the hospital, where she belonged. Not only was she closer at hand to deal
with emergencies on the wards, but her new office gave her a good view over the courtyard, where she could see everyone going about their business.

The damp chill of early September had given way to a few glorious days of Indian summer. Patients basked in their wheelchairs under the shade of the plane trees, enjoying the autumn sunshine. As she watched, a young nurse emerged through the archway from the dining block, heading back across the courtyard to the wards, doing the brisk heel-toe walk that almost but didn’t quite break the ‘no running’ rule.

As if she knew she was being watched, the girl suddenly caught Kathleen’s eye. She ducked her head, but not before Kathleen saw the guilty flush on her cheeks.

She turned away, smiling to herself. ‘So you don’t think we should give Miss Doyle a chance?’ she said.

‘I don’t believe she would fit in.’

I know how she feels, Kathleen thought.

Perhaps for once Miss Hanley had a point. If the new Matron couldn’t even fit in, how would someone like Dora Doyle ever cope?

DORA HAD MANAGED
to convince herself she didn’t want to be a nurse by the time the letter came.

She was walking back to Griffin Street with her friend Ruby Pike on a drizzly October evening after their shift at Gold’s when her little sister Beatrice came running up the street, boots undone, curls flying.

‘All right, Bea? Where’s the fire?’ Dora laughed.

‘Your letter from the hospital’s come!’ she panted. At eleven years old she looked like a miniature version of Dora, with her snub nose, ginger hair and freckled face. ‘Nanna wanted to open it but Mum says we’ve got to wait for you. Come on!’ She pulled at her sister’s hand, dragging her along the street.

Dora looked at Ruby. ‘This is it,’ she said.

‘Just think, this time next month you’ll be out of that ruddy sweatshop!’ Ruby grinned back.

‘I doubt it.’ Dora knew she’d made a proper fool of herself in the interview. She was surprised they’d even bothered to write.

‘’Course you will. They’d be daft not to take you on. Haven’t we always said, you’ve got the brains and I’ve got the looks?’

Dora grinned. With her wavy blonde hair and buxom curves, Ruby looked more like a movie star than a machinist. But she could have been clever too, if she hadn’t been too busy flirting with the boys at school.

Ruby saw Dora’s smile wobble and took her arm,
propelling her down the street after Bea, who’d run on ahead to warn the rest of the family at number twenty-eight.

‘Stop worrying, you’ll get in,’ she said. ‘You’re doing the right thing, I reckon. I wouldn’t mind being a nurse myself, come to think of it. Think of all those handsome doctors. Not to mention all those rich old men with incurable diseases, just waiting to die and leave me all their worldly goods!’

‘I think the idea is to keep them alive, Rube.’

They reached Dora’s front doorstep. ‘Go on.’ Ruby gave her a little shove. ‘You can’t put it off forever, y’know.’

‘I wish I could.’ She dreaded seeing the disappointment on her mum’s face. Dora might have given up on the idea, but it was all Rose Doyle talked about.

‘Well, you can’t. Now get in there before your nanna changes her mind and opens it for you. Let me know how you get on, won’t you?’ said Ruby as she let herself in next door.

‘I won’t need to,’ Dora said. ‘If I get in, you’ll be able to hear my mum screaming all the way to Aldgate!’

The letter was on the kitchen mantelpiece, tucked behind the old clock. The rest of the family were ranged around the fireplace, doing anything but looking at it. Dora’s mum Rose was mending shirts, while her younger sisters Josie and Bea played cards and Nanna Winnie peeled potatoes while sitting in her old rocking chair. The only one who genuinely paid no attention was Little Alfie, who played with his wooden train on the rug instead.

Her mother pushed the mending off her lap and shot to her feet as soon as Dora walked in. ‘There you are, love,’ she greeted her with a fixed smile. ‘Had a good day? I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake!’ Nanna Winnie rolled her eyes
and dropped another potato in the pan of water at her feet. ‘Dora, open that bleeding letter and put your mother out of her misery or we shall never get any peace in this house. She’s been on pins all day.’

Dora pulled out the letter from behind the clock and stared down at the Nightingale’s crest: the silhouette of a woman carrying a lamp. The thick cream envelope felt heavy. Her heart started to flutter in her chest.

‘Can I read it on my own?’ she asked her mother. She knew it would be bad news and she needed time to compose herself before she faced her family.

‘No, you bleeding cannot!’ Nanna Winnie snapped. ‘We haven’t sat here all afternoon so you can go and—’

‘Of course you can, love.’ Rose Doyle shot her mother a silencing look. ‘You just take your time.’

‘But don’t be too long about it,’ her grandmother warned. ‘I told you we should have steamed it open,’ Dora heard Nanna Winnie saying as she let herself out of the back door. ‘She would never have known if we was careful.’

Their narrow strip of back yard was sunless and damp, overshadowed by a high brick wall that separated it from the railway line high above. Dora took refuge in the privy at the end. The cold October wind whistled through the gaps in the old wooden door as she sat on the weathered pine seat and read her letter by the fading evening light.

Dear Miss Doyle,

The Board of Governors of the Nightingale’s Teaching Hospital is pleased to inform you that you have been accepted in their three-year programme leading to State Registration. Please report to Sister Sutton at the Junior Nurses’ Home on Tuesday, 6 November 1934 after 4 p.m. Enclosed is a list of equipment you
must bring with you. You will also need to send us the following measurements for your uniform, which will be waiting for you when you arrive . . .

A train rumbled past, rattling the privy door and shaking the ground under her feet, while Dora read the words over and over again, right down to the signature: Kathleen Fox (Matron). Then she snatched up the envelope and checked the address, just to make sure it had come to the right person.

She lowered the letter and stared ahead of her at the yellowing squares of newspaper stuck on a rusty nail on the back of the door. From somewhere outside she could hear their neighbour June Riley singing tunelessly. The sound seemed to be coming from miles away. None of it felt real.

When she finally emerged she found her mother in the yard, sweeping the cracked paving slabs, her eyes fixed on the privy door. She froze when she saw Dora.

‘Well?’ she said.

Dora nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Rose Doyle gave a yelp of joy and dropped her birch broom with a clatter.

‘You did it!’ she cried, putting her arm around Dora. ‘Oh, Dor, I’m so proud of you!’

The rest of the family, who had been gathered around the back door, came out of the house and suddenly Dora was lost in a clamour of jumping, cheering and hugs. Nanna Winnie looked on from the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.

‘I don’t know why she’s bothering,’ she grumbled. ‘The glue factory was good enough for you and me, Rosie. Why does she have to be different?’

Next door, June Riley flung open the back door and
stuck her head out, her thin face framed by a halo of spiky curlers. ‘Hello, what’s all the ruck about?’

‘Our Dora’s going to be a nurse,’ Rose called back, loudly enough for the rest of the street to hear.

June rushed out into the back yard in her dressing gown and slippers and stepped over the section of fence where the slats had broken, into the Doyles’ back yard.

‘Fancy, our little Dora, a nurse!’ Dora could smell the gin on June’s breath as she was trapped in her bony embrace. ‘Wait till I tell my Nick. He’s a porter up at the hospital, he’ll look after you.’

‘We know all about your Nick,’ Nanna Winnie muttered. ‘You stay away from him, Dora. There’s plenty of girls round here wish they’d done the same, the dirty little sod.’

‘Nanna!’ Dora hissed, as June moved over to hug Rose.

‘I speak as I find,’ Nanna said primly. She looked at June and shook her head. ‘Look at the state of her. I expect she’s just got up. Down the pub till all hours, I daresay.’

Dora blushed, but luckily June hadn’t heard Nanna. Drink made June Riley unpredictable, and she was as likely to go for Nanna Winnie with a poker as she was to laugh it off. They’d lived next door to the Rileys for the last ten years, ever since Dora’s father had died and they’d moved back in with Nanna Winnie. Poor June had turned to drink four years ago when her husband ran off, leaving her to bring up her two sons alone.

The Turnbulls and the Prossers came out of the house they shared on the other side, to see what all the noise was about, and Rose recounted their news over and over again. It gave Dora a warm glow to see the pride on her mother’s face; this was her moment of triumph as much as Dora’s own.

‘It’s good news, then? What did I tell you?’ Ruby stuck her head out of the upstairs window, alongside her mum
Lettie’s. She and June greeted each other with the curtest of nods. The Pikes lived upstairs from the Rileys, but the two women rarely saw eye to eye. ‘What am I going to do without you, Dor? Gold’s Garments won’t be the same!’

‘You’ll have to find someone else to cover for you while you sneak outside for a fag!’ Dora called up to her.

‘I won’t have anyone to have a laugh with, that’s for sure. They’re a miserable lot there. And as for that cow Esther—’ Ruby rolled her eyes.

‘She’s all right,’ Dora said, thinking of the hamsa, still nestling under her blouse. She’d tried to return it, but Esther had insisted she keep it.

‘Only ’cos you’re her favourite.’

‘You’d be her favourite too, if you put a bit of effort into your work and didn’t give her so much cheek!’

‘I put enough effort into that place just by turning up, thank you very much. I’m not killing myself to line that old Jew’s pockets!’

‘I hope you don’t think you’ll have it easy?’ Lettie joined in. She worked as a ward maid at the Nightingale. Unlike her pretty, easy-going daughter, she was a thin-faced, sour little woman, always ready to look on the black side of life. ‘I’ve seen the way they treat them up at that hospital. They work them into the ground, and keep them locked up in that home like nuns. It’s do this, do that, all day long. And those young nurses are right stuck up, too. Very posh they are, don’t give the likes of us the time of day.’ She looked Dora up and down. ‘Don’t know as they’ll take to you.’

‘Gawd, Mum, do you have to be so bloody cheerful all the time?’ Ruby rolled her eyes at Dora.

‘I’m only telling the truth,’ Lettie said huffily.

‘Take no notice of her,’ Nanna Winnie muttered as Lettie and Ruby went back inside and closed the window. ‘She’s
always been a bitter old cow. Just because her daughter’s a trollop.’

‘Nanna! That’s my best mate you’re talking about.’

‘That doesn’t stop her being a trollop, does it? Like I said, I speak as I find.’

‘They’re not really going to lock you up, are they, Dora?’ her sister Josie asked. She was fourteen, and the only one of her sisters not to inherit their father’s red curls and sturdy figure. Josie was dark, slender and pretty like their mother.