Andrew John and Trevor Lewis were packing their doctors’ bags when Matron entered the committee room.
‘You’ve examined all the new inmates who require medical attention, Dr John, Dr Lewis?’
‘We have, Matron, and filled in the appropriate forms.’ Andrew steeled himself for disapproval. ‘We’ve admitted fourteen to the Infirmary.’
‘You found fourteen cases serious enough to warrant admission?’
‘I’m afraid so, Matron.’
‘They were?’
Trevor checked the forms. ‘Three cases of advanced pneumoconiosis in ex-miners. Four of bronchitis, including two women. Two of severe malnutrition, both in children, one ex-miner with infected leg ulcers and four cases of scabies in male vagrants.’
‘I asked they be put in isolation,’ Andrew added.
‘Fourteen new patients in the infirmary will strain our resources, and the Parish Guardians’ budget.’
‘It couldn't be helped, Matron. We saw forty-seven people in total and asked Nurse Brown to make a note on the record cards of four others who exhibited symptoms of chest infections. If they’re fortunate, dry, clean beds will help alleviate their condition,’ Andrew packed his stethoscope and closed his bag.
‘I sincerely hope you’re right, Dr John. We need to keep some beds for emergency admissions.’
‘We’re aware of that, Matron,’ Trevor said.
‘I’m not certain you are, Dr Lewis, or you, Dr John. You’re both accustomed to working in teaching hospitals where money is no object.’
A knock at the door interrupted them before Andrew thought of a suitable reply. The secretary who worked in the general office opened it. ‘Matron, Dr John, Dr Lewis, my apologies for interrupting. We just received an urgent telephone call from Mrs Davies, the Postmistress in Leyshon Street. A woman has fallen and injured her head. Initial report suggests it’s serious.’
Grateful for the excuse to leave, Trevor picked up his bag and went to the coat rack. ‘As I’m duty doctor until midnight, that’s me. Please tell the Postmistress I’m on my way, Miss Clayton.’
‘Doctor’s coming and I spoke to Mr McCarthy in the Post Office in Trallwn,’ Mrs Davies announced when she entered Mary’s back kitchen. ‘He said he'll be here as soon as he can. Your Diana is in the passage with Colleen and Sean. Shall I ask her to bring them in, Megan?’ She looked down at Mary McCarthy and forced a smile, she hoped Mary would find reassuring. Megan had draped tea towels around Mary’s head in a vain attempt to conceal the blood. Instead they’d soaked it up, and lay in bright crimson contrast against the grey flagstones.
‘We’ll soon have you right as rain, Mary, love.’ Freda Williams bustled in from the outside tap with a full kettle. Megan didn’t have the heart to tell her no one wanted tea. She knew that Freda, like all the other neighbours who’d crowded into Mary’s house, only wanted to help.
Megan reached for Mary’s hand. ‘You’re freezing, love. Not surprising as you’re lying on a cold floor.’
‘We should get her up …’
‘No!’ Megan exclaimed. ‘The only person who should move her is the doctor.’
‘She’s right,’ Freda whispered to the women gathered behind her. ‘Megan knows what she’s doing. After all, her niece is a nurse.’
‘Freda, please pass me that knitted blanket Mary uses to wrap the children in when she hasn’t lit the kitchen stove.’ Megan held out her hand.
‘Colleen wants to see her mam. Can she come in?’ Diana asked though the open door.
Megan had seen the haunted look in Mary’s eyes too often not to know what it portended. Her neighbour was close to death. She didn’t want the responsibility for keeping a dying woman from her children. ‘Do you want to see Colleen and Sean, Mary?’
‘Please.’ Mary’s voice was so low Megan had to read her lips.
‘Bring them in, Diana. The rest of you please leave to give Mary some air.’
Half the women shuffled towards the back door that led to the outside, the rest made for the door that led to the passage but Megan sensed they hadn’t gone far. She continued to kneel on one side of Mary. Colleen scuttled in between the women’s legs and crouched on the other. Diana followed and held out Sean so Mary could see him.
‘If you have to go to hospital, Mary, I’m sure your brother-in-law will take the children.’ Mrs Davies hadn’t retreated further than the doorway. Megan saw her glance down the passage. The hum of subdued whispers escalated and Megan guessed the neighbours were waiting for the news the doctor’s arrival would bring.
‘Not, Joe, Mrs Davies … you shouldn’t …’ Mary voice failed. She struggled to lift her hand to touch Colleen.
‘Joe is your husband's brother, Mary. At a time like this family is everything.’ Megan heard a masculine voice at the door. ‘That will be the doctor. Diana, take Colleen and Sean into our house, love. Give them some of the Christmas biscuits I made yesterday. The ones with sugar on.’
Trevor Lewis pushed his way past the neighbours and through the open door into the kitchen.
‘Everyone out except the patient, and …’ deciding Megan looked the most capable person in the room, ‘the lady kneeling next to her. I’m Dr Lewis and you are …?’
Mary whispered her name too low for him to catch it.
‘Mary McCarthy, Dr Lewis. I’m Megan Powell, her next-door neighbour.’
‘You haven’t moved the patient?’
‘No, Dr Lewis. I knew not to do that.’
Trevor lifted the tea towels and looked into Mary’s eyes. He sat back on his heels. ‘If it hasn’t been done, ask someone to send for an ambulance.’
‘The Postmistress has a telephone in the shop.’
‘I’ll do it right away, Megan.’
Megan didn’t move. ‘Thank you, Mrs Davies.’
Trevor looked around. He was accustomed to poverty after completing his training in Cardiff Royal Infirmary. But the poverty in the Cardiff slums was different from the poverty in the valleys. Even when the women in Pontypridd didn’t have two farthings to rub together to buy coal, or wood for a fire, they kept their houses as spotless as the coal dust spewed out by the collieries would allow. When they couldn’t afford soap, they scrubbed and scoured with water and stone.
As a result, most of the terraced houses in the town were cold and smelled of damp, but there was always a full kettle waiting for a fire to be lit. When it was, the teapot was brought out and hospitality offered even if the tea leaves had already seen more than one brewing.
Trevor watched Mary McCarthy with a professional eye. ‘You've been in the wars, Mrs McCarthy. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a look at you now. If I should hurt you, let me know.’ He moved the tea towels from around Mary’s head. ‘I’m going to lift your head for a moment, Mrs McCarthy.’ He slipped his hand around the back of her neck and gently lifted. Blood sprayed from the wound in Mary’s skull. Her eyes dimmed. Andrew grabbed a clean towel from a pile on a chair and pressed it firmly against the wound before lowering Mary to the floor again.
‘Is Mr McCarthy here?’ Trevor asked Megan.
‘He was killed in a pit accident last Easter.’
‘Are there any other relatives?’
‘Two children, one’s nearly three and one’s eleven months old.’
‘Relatives who’ll take the children?’
‘Mary’s brother-in-law and his wife are on their way.’
Mary moaned and Megan tightened her grip on Mary’s hand.
‘It’s dark …’ Mary closed her eyes. She breathed out, her lips trembled then relaxed.
‘She’s gone.’
Trevor knew Megan wasn’t asking him a question.
‘There was nothing anyone could have done, Mrs Powell. Mrs McCarthy fractured her skull when she hit the floor. It was only a matter of time.’ He pulled the knitted blanket over Mary’s face.
‘You asked for an ambulance, doctor,’ Megan reminded.
‘It can take Mrs McCarthy down to the mortuary in the Graig Hospital as there’s no family in the house to lay her out or sit with her.’
‘Poor Mary.’ Megan wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
Freda Williams appeared in the doorway. ‘Mr and Mr McCarthy have just arrived in a van …’ she saw the blanket covering Mary and blanched. ‘Mary’s …’
‘Gone, Freda. Show Joe and Annie McCarthy in, then give Diana a hand with the children. I’ll be in shortly to tell them they won’t be seeing their mother again.’
David Williams stepped into the cage. When the winding mechanism slid into gear he looked up for the first sign of the night sky. He’d become accustomed to spending his working hours underground but it had taught him no air was as fresh or as sweet as the first lungful breathed in when the cage reached ‘up top’.
The cage operator called to David as soon as he saw him. ‘Harry Jones went to the office after he came up, David. Straight after, management sent a message they want to see you.’
David shuddered as he stepped out of the cage. The second lungful of air brought home the difference in air temperature between underground and the surface. It was cruel in winter. “Bronchial weather”, his Dad called it.
‘You go, David,’ his father said, ‘I’ll wait for you in the lamp shed.’
‘Been a naughty boy …’
‘Less of that, Richards.’ Evan Powell turned to his fellow coal cutter. ‘Management wants to see men for good as well as bad reasons.’
‘Not that you’d know anything about that, Richards,’ Will Powell sniped.
‘Don’t stoop to Richards’ level, Will,’ Evan ordered his nephew. ‘The sooner we check our tools and lamp in, the sooner we’ll get home.’
‘I told my brother not to marry Mary Sullivan.’ Joe McCarthy pulled the blanket back uncovering Mary’s head. She was never strong …’
‘She fell off a chair. It’s the sort of thing that can happen to anyone,’ Megan broke in.
‘Just look at her. Skinny as a stick of liquorice. A puff of wind would blow her over,’ Joe’s wife Annie was disparaging.
‘If by that you mean she was half your size …’
‘Perhaps we could see to a few practical things.’ Trevor wished he’d thought to bring one of the staff from the workhouse with him, or even better one of the Parish Guardians. ‘You’ll be taking the children, Mr McCarthy?’
‘Me and the wife talked about that on the way over. We’ll be taking the boy …’
‘And Mary’s things of course, for the boy to have when he’s older, which is why we brought the van.’ Annie went to the mantelpiece and lifted down Mary’s seven day clock.
‘What about Colleen?’ Megan demanded.
‘We have three girls of our own,’ Joe continued, ‘so we feel we really cannot take on another girl.’
‘She’ll be better off in the orphanage, where she stands a chance of being adopted by someone who can’t have kids,’ Annie added. ‘They’ll be able to give her more than us.’
Megan was incensed. ‘You’d see your own flesh and blood in the workhouse …’
‘Not the workhouse, the orphanage …’
‘Same difference.’
‘No, it’s not,’ Annie snapped.
‘Ladies, please.’ Trevor held up his hand as Freda Williams walked in with two ambulance man.
‘Dr Lewis.’ The senior man nodded to Trevor. ‘I’m sorry, we’re too late.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything for her if you’d been here when she fell.’ Trevor left his doctor’s bag and the death certificate he hadn’t had time to complete, and rose to his feet. ‘Could you take her to the mortuary in the Graig Hospital please, and while you’re there, ask them to send up a representative from the Parish Guardians and a nurse.’
‘Will do, Dr Lewis.’
‘Shouldn’t the children be called in to say goodbye to Mary?’ Joe asked.
‘The children have already said their goodbye.’ Megan stood back to make room for the men to reach Mary’s corpse.
‘It might be best if you go into the parlour out of our way, sir, madam,’ the ambulance man looked pointedly at Joe and Annie.
Annie clutched the clock to her chest and she followed Joe out of the room.
‘All of you out of here, now!’ Joe shouted at the neighbours assembled in the passage. ‘Have some respect for the dead.’
One of the ambulance men left the kitchen and returned with a stretcher and a red blanket. He removed the knitted blanket from Mary’s corpse and looked for somewhere to put it.
‘I’ll take that.’ Megan folded it to conceal the bloodstains. ‘Mary knitted it when she was carrying Colleen. I’ll try to get the bloodstains out. Colleen might appreciate it as a keepsake when she’s older.’ She left the kitchen to give the ambulance men more room. Joe and Annie had only gone as far as the front parlour. Annie was sorting through piles of clothes that had been folded on the rexine covered chaise longue.
‘Those belong to Wilf Horton,’ Megan informed her.
‘I know Mary worked occasionally for him but surely not all of these are Wilf’s. Some must be Mary's.’ Annie shook out a brown wool dress and held it up in front of her.
‘Everything in here is Wilf’s,’ Megan reiterated. ‘Mary was careful to keep the clothes she prepared for Wilf to sell away from hers and the children’s.’
‘This frock is Mary’s size …’
‘Whether it’s her size or not, it’s Wilf Horton’s. Mary could never have kept on this house on or paid the bills without what Wilf paid her.’
‘Not everything in here belongs to Wilf Horton. I gave this to Mary and my brother when they married.’ Joe lifted down the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece.
‘Can't you wait until Mary’s in her coffin before stripping her home?’ Megan saw Trevor watching her from the passage. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Dr Lewis, I’ll see if the children need me next door.’