‘Would you take a tray up to the sick ward, Angela?’ Cook asked when Angela carried down the tea tray, which she had enjoyed in her office at eleven that morning. ‘I’m still so short-handed.’ The older woman gave a little shake of the head. ‘This flu bug has taken against my staff, I think.’
‘Yes, your girls have had more than their fair share,’ Angela agreed. ‘You know you have only to ask and I can help. We could always take on a temporary girl if you’re really pushed. I’m sure I could find an agency with an honest working girl on their list.’
‘You’ve a good heart, Angela, but I’m not sure Sister Beatrice would agree to that,’ Cook said and nodded approvingly. ‘I wasn’t sure you would fit in here when you first came, but I think you’ll do – and you can call me Muriel in future.’ She patted her hair, which had been freshly washed and Marcel-waved with heated tongs the previous day.
‘Thank you.’ Angela smiled, touched by the compliment. ‘Your hair looks lovely. I must find a good hairdresser to cut mine soon.’ She picked up the loaded tray and put it on the trolley. ‘I’ll bring what you need later, but for now I’ll take this tray up to the ward. At least visitors are allowed now that we don’t have any nasty infections.’
‘I’ll give you the phone number of my hairdresser,’ Muriel said. ‘If you meant what you said about extra staff … Well, I have a niece who is looking for a Saturday job until she takes up nursing. She doesn’t care about wages but wants to work with children – because she hopes to be a children’s nurse when she has finished all her exams.’
‘I’ll mention the possibility to Sister Beatrice, but your niece ought to be paid something,’ Angela said.
Walking upstairs with the loaded trolley, Angela was thoughtful. She was beginning to find her way about now and the list of changes she wanted to make was growing. Some were just small things, but she had a feeling that Sister Beatrice was going to fight her all the way. For one thing, she’d noticed that the staff always used certain tables in the dining room, and there were places to spare at some of the children’s tables, so the carers could quite easily sit with the children sometimes to give it more of a family feeling. They were going to need more tables when the new wing was up and running; it didn’t make sense to have another dining room, because the kitchen was here. Perhaps they could expand out into the caretaker’s room and move him to the new wing?
As she heard the happy laughter coming from the children’s ward, Angela’s frown lifted. The children here suffered from a variety of ailments, from little Johnny who had experienced a bad bout of rheumatic fever, which had left him with a weak heart, to little Susie, and young Marion Jason, a pretty child who’d had a nasty fall and broken both her arms and her right leg. Her arms had mended well, but her leg was still sore and festering from an infected wound that had almost drained her life from her before she was brought into the home. Marion’s father had beaten the child black and blue and then thrown her down the stairs; the wonder was that she hadn’t broken her neck. She’d been in the infirmary’s children’s ward for seven weeks, and then transferred to St Saviour’s once the wound had begun to heal. The infection was no longer a danger to her life but the wound still caused her pain, and she was just beginning to regain some mobility. However, the terrible experience had left her feeling nervous and for a long time she’d hardly spoken a word. The nurses and carers believed that she was beginning to trust them, but she seldom smiled or chattered as most of their children did.
When Angela entered the ward and placed her tray of egg and cress sandwiches, and three dishes of plum tart and custard, on the table together with a jug of milk and another of orange squash, Marion was sitting on the edge of her bed. She was enraptured as Mr Markham read his story about a giant, who had captured a little girl and was going to eat her, but a big hairy spider had come to frighten the giant away and Johnny Goodboy had arrived to rescue Little Susie from the monster.
Hearing the children giggling as the monster was vanquished by the big spider, which then sat down and drank a glass of milk, made Angela’s heart lift. She smiled at the brilliant young surgeon who gave so much of his time to children free of charge. She’d been told that he’d been introduced to St Saviour’s by Mark and had become a regular visitor of late. He was perhaps thirty years of age, she supposed, with rather too long light brown hair that fell forward over his brow and into his eyes, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose for reading. He became aware of her, closed his book, removed his glasses and smiled, then stood up, nodding to Sally, who had been quietly watching in the background.
‘It’s time for your lunch already, my dears. We shall have another story next time – or perhaps you would prefer to work on a puzzle?’
There were squeals of protest from the children, who begged him not to go, but he shook his head, telling him that he had patients waiting for him to cut lumps out of their tummies that afternoon. His words caused his audience to give little screams of delight, because to them it was no more than the wicked giant being chopped into little pieces and eaten by the big hairy spider – which, of course, was Mr Markham’s object in telling them gory stories. He believed it helped them to come to terms with what had happened to them at the hands of violent parents, preparing them for a future that would in most cases be hard. His stories always had a happy ending, an ending that gave them hope, reassuring them that, no matter what, there were people who could help: like those here at St Saviour’s.
‘Now then, children,’ Sally said. ‘Say thank you to Mr Markham. He has lots of sick people to make better and you have to eat your lunch.’
‘Can we have sandwiches made out of giant’s fingers and toes?’ Johnny said and shot a sly look at her.
‘Oh dear, what kind of monsters have I created here?’ Mr Markham twinkled at the young carer, and Sally’s blush made Angela wonder if his reasons for visiting so often might include a desire to see a pretty young woman.
‘They love your stories,’ Sally replied with a shy smile.
‘I’ll leave you to get on with it,’ Angela said and turned towards the door so as not to intrude if these two wanted a few moments alone. However, he was clearly about to leave himself, ushering her to go ahead and holding the door for her.
‘Bloodthirsty little monsters, aren’t they?’ Mr Markham remarked to Angela as he followed her into the corridor. ‘I find that children are very resilient. If you tread round them on tiptoe you do more harm than good. Most of them have known pain and unkindness. I think it far better to make up stories of wicked giants who get their comeuppance and work through their fear than to try to pretend that none of it happened. Facing up to it is always better in the long run.’
‘Yes, I believe that is the same for all of us. Mark Adderbury works on similar principles, I know.’
‘Yes, sound man. It was he that got me to try my stuff out here, more his field in a way, but I’ve always been interested in working with children in need of help – whether they are the casualties of life or simply underprivileged, and that isn’t necessarily always the same thing.’
‘No, I know what you mean; a child doesn’t have to be poor to suffer from bullying, and not all deprived children are unhappy. Some of the poorer families are brave and make excellent parents, but unfortunately society doesn’t see fit to pay them a living wage and the children suffer. It is the vulnerable ones, the ones that have slipped through the net, forgotten by those who should care, that are most at risk.’
‘Exactly.’ He smiled at her. ‘How are you getting on here? Mark told me you had joined the staff. Fitting in all right?’
‘Yes, thank you, I think so,’ Angela replied with enthusiasm. ‘It was nice to hear the children laughing just now. Yet we can only help a few and there must be so many still out there needing and wanting the love that is denied to them by uncaring parents or …’ She broke off and blushed as she realised that she must sound like a well-meaning do-gooder.
‘It’s what we all need, isn’t it?’ he said and gave her an amused but approving look. ‘I must leave you now. I really do have to go and cut some lumps out of people’s tummies …’
Angela watched as he went down the stairs and out of the front door. She’d told him she was fitting in, and she really believed she was finding her feet at last. Her work was mostly in the office thus far, but from next week she would be supervising the building work as well. Since making a friend of Muriel, she’d helped out with trays and cutting sandwiches, and she’d been on a trip to the park with some of the older children one afternoon. Sally had gone with her, and they’d taken the children on a pleasure boat on the Serpentine, and then given them tea at Lyons’ Corner House afterwards: little round ice creams and small fancy cakes washed down by ginger beer.
One day in the future Angela was hoping there would be sufficient funds to take the kids into the Essex countryside or even the seaside, but that would happen only if she managed to bring in enough donations for next year. The money for their trips was raised by outside helpers who held flag days and went round shops and factories, collecting pennies in tins. Angela had chipped in with three pounds of her own money, which had paid for the special tea rather than just a cornet in the park. The children had been so excited by all they’d seen and done. Yet she knew this was only the beginning but her ideas would have to be introduced gradually. For the moment she wanted to see how things worked and what could be done to improve them.
She longed to do more – much more, and not just as an administrator. Angela hadn’t realised until she came here that there was a deep well of love inside her, just waiting to pour out. Some of the sights she’d seen here, the stories she’d been told of children brought in off the streets with sores all over their bodies, half-starving – it was enough to make her weep, yet she also had tremendous satisfaction in seeing those same children sitting down to a decent meal and hearing their laughter and chatter. St Saviour’s was certainly a place of safety and hope, and she wanted to be a part of it all, to stay here and do what she could for the children.
As yet Angela had seen virtually nothing of Mark Adderbury, though she knew he’d been to the home at least twice since she’d started working there. Once she’d been out shopping, and the second time she’d just caught a glimpse of him with Sister Beatrice. They had been deep in conversation so she hadn’t liked to intrude; she was aware that she felt disappointed that he hadn’t rung her, because she’d thought they might now see more of each other. Mark was such a good friend to her and she wasn’t sure how she would have got through without him, but she mustn’t allow herself to think of him as more than a friend. She still loved John and even to think of putting another man in his place was disloyal.
Angela was glad that Sister had changed her mind and allowed Alice Cobb to stay on, but she wasn’t sure how much she’d had to do with it. Perhaps Sister had her own reasons for relenting.
Alice had thanked her for helping her, obviously believing that she’d had some influence with Sister Beatrice. The girl had seemed cheerful that morning, but since then Angela had seen her looking anxious and wondered if Alice was in trouble with Sister again. Perhaps it was a personal problem. With her family that was quite possible, but Angela didn’t yet know her well enough to ask if something was wrong. Michelle was Alice’s special friend and she believed they went out together often. So far, Angela hadn’t made friends here, perhaps because of the perceived social divide, though she didn’t feel as much of an intruder as she had at first.