To Have and To Hold

Carmel thought the champ, with his build, his beefy arms, legs like tree trunks, small, mean-looking eyes and belligerent features reminded her of her father.

‘I’m not surprised that no one has taken him up on the offer,’ she said.

There were a fair few men in the audience, but none seemed anxious to take up the challenge, though they hung about for a little while.

‘It’s early yet,’ Sylvia told her. ‘Wait till they’ve sunk a few jars in The Bell. The weediest ones will think they can take on the world then.’

‘Have anyone ever laid the champ out?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Jane said, as she steered Carmel away. ‘Do you think they would be offering five pounds if people were likely to win it? Mind you, we have seen quite a few of the challengers spread their length on the sawdust.’

‘Ugh, it’s horrible.’

The others laughed at Carmel’s queasiness, but kindly.

‘I’ll bet you’ll think this just as bad,’ Jane said, and Carmel thought that she was right for as they turned the corner, there was a man lying on a bed of nails. He had very brown and oily skin and there was a lot of it to see, for he had few clothes on, just something wrapped around his head that Lois told her was a turban and what appeared to be a giant nappy on his lower half. As the friends watched in horrified fascination, two girls stepped forward, shed their shoes, and stood one his chest and one on his abdomen. The man made no sound and he seemed not to either feel the girls’ weight, nor the nails they could clearly see were pressing into his skin.

Eventually, the girls got off and money as thrown into the bowl by the nailed bed by impressed onlookers. The man got up and came over to the nurses.

‘Any of you lot like to try? Promise I won’t look up your skirts.’

‘Carmel might fancy a go,’ Jane said with a smile at the repugnance on Carmel’s face.

‘Carmel would not—oh, no, definitely not,’ Carmel declared vehemently. ‘I think it’s just, well, just awful.’

The man shrugged as Lois pulled her away.

Carmel wasn’t that keen on the man tied in chains either, but was quite willing to stay around to see he got free in the end and was unharmed, though the others eventually got fed up.

‘He won’t even try until there is at least a pound in the hat, and that could take ages yet,’ Lois said.

‘Have you ever seen him get out?’

‘No, I haven’t personally.’

‘I have,’ Jane said. ‘But just the once.’

‘How?’ Carmel asked, for the man was trussed up like some of the chickens she had seen hanging from butchers’ stalls earlier that day.

‘I don’t know,’ Jane admitted. ‘He had a cloak around him. Didn’t take him long, I do remember that. People say it’s a swizz, but you can examine the chains and all if you want. He doesn’t mind.’

‘Well, I don’t fancy waiting around any more tonight.’ Sylvia said. ‘And the musicians will be setting up soon, I should think.’

‘Music,’ Carmel said. ‘That’s more my kind of thing.’

‘Oh, you’ll like it, all right,’ Lois said. ‘It’s from your neck of the woods—the first stuff they play, anyway— jigs and reels and that, and then they go on to the songs from the music halls that everybody knows.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You will when you’ve been here a bit,’ Sylvia put in.

They went past the stilt walkers, still striding effortlessly around the market, and past Jimmy Jesus again, urging the people to repent and then their souls would be as white as the driven snow, washed by the blood of the Lamb. There were a few catcalls from some of the lads and a bit of jeering, but generally people seemed to tolerate the man very well. Carmel was glad, for she thought he had a very gentle voice and manner about him.

By now the accordion players were just setting up in their corner.

Lois said, ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me, after that tea and everything. I must have worms because I could just murder a baked potato.’ She indicated a little man nearby with an oven shaped not unlike Stephenson’s Rocket, which Carmel had seen pictures of.

‘It’s just because you can smell them,’ Sylvia said. ‘They always smell lovely, I think.’

‘I don’t care what it is,’ Lois said, ‘I am buying one anyway. Anyone else want one, or are you going to let me be the only pig?’

‘Let me buy one for each of you,’ said a male voice suddenly.

Lois swung around. ‘Paul!’ she exclaimed, and gave the man a hug before introducing him to her friends one by one. ‘Sylvia, Jane and Carmel, this is my cousin Paul.’

‘God,’ said Jane in an aside to Sylvia, ‘why haven’t I got cousins like that?’

‘Having them as cousins is no good,’ Sylvia replied, as the man in question and Lois went over to the hot potato man. ‘Did you see that dazzling smile he cast your way, Carmel?’

‘I can’t say I noticed,’ Carmel said.

‘You must be flipping blind then,’ Jane put in. ‘I really don’t know what’s the matter with you.’

‘I’ve told you, I’m not interested in men.’

‘God, Carmel, you must be mad,’ Sylvia protested. ‘I’d be turning somersaults if a man as dishy as that one smiled at me like he did you.’

‘Well, that’s you, isn’t it?’ Carmel retorted. ‘I don’t feel the same, that’s all.’

‘Carmel, we’re not talking of marrying the man, just having a bit of fun, and no harm in that either,’ Sylvia said. ‘After all, none of us can get married for years anyway, if we want to finish our training.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Jane said. ‘It depends on whether a better offer comes along. A man like that wouldn’t have to try very hard to entice me from the charming clutches of Matron.’

The girls laughed but talk about Paul had to cease there, for he and Lois were approaching. Carmel found the potato surprisingly tasty. The music was good too and made her foot tap. The only thing that spoiled it for her was seeing the shambling women, clutching their spoils, children trailing behind them, leaving the market as the hawkers began packing away.

She turned her face resolutely away from the sight and didn’t mention it at all lest the others be irritated by her. They tried to get her to show them a jig or a reel, but she would never show herself up like that and especially not with Paul’s eyes fastened on hers so intently.

By the time the music-hall songs were being played, the hot potatoes were all eaten and everyone was belting out the songs, Paul had somehow arranged it so that he was right next to Carmel. He might as well have been invisible for Carmel took no notice of him at all.

Eventually, in a lull between tunes, he said, ‘I believe you and my illustrious cousin are room-mates?’

Jane, hearing this, gave Sylvia a nudge, she nodded and they moved forward into the crowd, taking Lois with them.

Carmel answered, ‘That’s right.’

‘And this is your first visit to the Bull Ring she said?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, what do you think of it?’

Carmel shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’

Paul smiled. ‘Just all right?’

‘What d’you want me to say?’ Carmel cried. ‘It’s good. I’ve enjoyed it.’

‘Have you anything like this where you come from?’

‘No, not really.’

‘You hail from Ireland, Lois said?’

‘That’s right?’

‘Which part?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

Paul was nonplussed. He wasn’t used to having this reaction, especially from girls. He shrugged. ‘Just interested.’

‘Why?’ Carmel demanded. ‘You don’t even know me.’

‘Maybe I was trying to get to know you.’

‘I don’t see the purpose of it.’

‘It’s just…it’s what people do, that’s all.’

‘It’s not what this person does,’ Carmel snapped. She looked around frantically for the others, but found herself somehow positioned at the edge of the group with other people in front of her, separating her from her friends. Everyone was singing with gusto about it being a long way to Tipperary.

Paul, though taken aback by Carmel’s response to his innocent questions, was not one for giving up easily, especially with a girl as lovely-looking as Carmel. He thought maybe she was shy and so he drew her away from the group slightly and said, ‘Please don’t be offended. I really meant no harm. It’s just that I am interested in people. It’s partly why I want to be a doctor, I suppose, and with you in the same line of work, as it were, and a room-mate of Lois’s, I just thought it would be nice to get to know you a little better.’

‘So now you know I’m not worth the effort.’

Paul gave a slightly hesitant laugh as he said, ‘Surely, Carmel, I should be the judge of that?’

‘No,’ Carmel said. ‘I should. I really have no wish to talk to you further and I want to rejoin my friends.’

That wasn’t so easy, however, because there was a body of people in front of her that she couldn’t push past and so she stood awkwardly on the edge of the group with Paul beside her. He was wondering how in heaven’s name he could break down this delicious-looking girl’s reserve, but Carmel had many secrets in her past she had no intention of sharing with a virtual stranger.

The musicians finished and began tidying away. Carmel sighed. Now perhaps she could meet up with the others and they could all go home, away from this irritating man and his constant questions, but as she thought this, the strains of a brass band could be heard in the distance and she lifted her head to listen.

‘That’s the Sally Army playing “Jerusalem”,’ Paul told Carmel, seeing her interest.

‘Sally Army?’

‘Salvation Army I mean really,’ Paul said. ‘But you would hardly knew about those either, coming from Ireland. They come here every Saturday evening and collect up all the hungry and destitute, the sort of person you or I would cross the street to avoid, for they are usually none too clean and alive with vermin. The Salvation Army don’t seem to care about that, and they will take these people back to the Citadel, which is what they call their headquarters, and give them hot broth and bread, and try and find the especially vulnerable a bed for the night.’

It happened just as Paul said. From the minute the Salvation Army swung into view, singing with all their might, tramps began emerging from every corner.

However, some of the crowd had begun to melt away and Carmel was able to push past the rest and rejoin her friends again. Unseen by Carmel, Lois raised her eyebrows quizzically at her cousin and he shook his head slightly.

Jane was saying to Carmel, ‘D’you want to stay and sing some more?’

‘I don’t know any of these,’ Carmel said truthfully as the band announced they would be singing ‘The Old Rugged Cross’. ‘I’m ready to call it a day if you are.’

‘But the night is young yet,’ Paul said. ‘How about a drink to round it off?’

Alone, Carmel would have refused. She had a horror of drink and drunks and pubs, but she wasn’t alone and it wasn’t totally her decision to make.

Paul turned pleading eyes on Lois and she knew what he wanted. So, despite the early start Carmel would have in the morning, Lois said a drink would be just the job. Both Sylvia and Jane too had seen where Paul’s interest lay, and so they backed Lois up and Carmel knew the decision had been made. Without being churlish and risk alienating her friends, she would have to go along with it. However, she thought firmly, there was no way that she would drink anything even mildly alcoholic and she would be adamant about that.

Paul had one arm linked with Lois and when he extended his other for Carmel, she pretended not to see it, and Sylvia, feeling sorry for the rebuff, took hold of it instead. Jane and Carmel walked behind, Jane shaking her head at Carmel’s foolishness.

‘Our Paul is really keen on you,’ Lois said as she and Carmel made their way to work a couple of days after her initial visit to the Bull Ring.

‘I hope you told him that I’m a hopeless case.’

‘No,’ Lois said. ‘But then he wouldn’t listen if I did.’

Carmel shrugged. ‘He’s going to be one disappointed man then, isn’t he?’

‘Carmel…’

‘No, Lois, I’ve told you, but you don’t seem to understand it,’ Carmel said hotly. ‘I’m not interested in Paul, or any other man—not now, not ever. Anyway, isn’t there some rule about not fraternising with the doctors?’

‘Yeah, for all the notice anyone takes of it,’ Lois said. ‘Some girls come into nursing and their prime objective is to hook a nice eligible and potentially rich doctor.’

‘Surely not?’

‘No, straight up,’ Lois said. ‘I really wanted to nurse, but I bet Jane would jack the whole thing in if the right man came along, doctor or otherwise. You heard what she said the other day and it wasn’t totally in jest.’

‘I was a bit shocked,’ Carmel said.

‘Why?’ Lois said. ‘She is eighteen. Lots of girls our age are at least going steady, or else engaged, if not married. She might as well do something useful while she waits for Mr Right to sweep her off her feet.’

‘I suppose.’

‘I am more committed than that and I know you are, but I want to have some fun as well.’

‘I don’t mind fun,’ Carmel protested. ‘I really enjoyed Saturday.’

‘Till Paul came,’ Lois said. ‘You changed totally then.’

‘Well, yes, if you like,’ Carmel said. ‘I enjoyed it till Paul came. He sort of muscled in and took over, like men always do.’

‘I didn’t see Paul doing that,’ Lois said. ‘You seem to have a real downer of the whole male race.’

‘You have it at last,’ Carmel said. ‘And you would be doing your cousin a service if you were to tell him that.’

In the end, Lois decided to tell Paul, because she knew that it would be more unkind to allow him to harbour false hopes. She knew, but hadn’t told Carmel yet, that soon she would see more of Paul than she might like, because he had been assigned to work at the General Hospital from the autumn.

However, Paul was more upset than Lois had bargained for when she stressed how Carmel felt.

‘Look, Paul,’ she said, seeing his desolate face, ‘I can’t believe you can be this upset. Crikey, you’ve only met the girl once and for such a short time too.’

‘None of that matters,’ Paul said miserably ‘I think about her all the time.’

Lois felt immensely sorry for her cousin, but she knew for his own sake, he had to get over this fixation with Carmel. ‘Well, you will have to stop. I have told you how she feels, Paul. This is just silly. You don’t even know her.’

‘I tried to get to know her,’ Paul said. ‘God, it was like pulling teeth.’

Lois smiled. ‘We have all had a taste of that,’ she said. ‘Carmel might sometimes make a comment about her family, though she does that rarely, and whatever she says has to be left there, because if you start asking questions, she clams up. We all know her parents’ marriage isn’t a happy one—in fact it is so miserable it has put her off for life. You must forget her, dear cousin. Good heavens, isn’t the world full of pretty girls who would fall madly in love with you if you gave them the slightest encouragement?’

Paul smiled and Lois caught her breath and regretted anew that he was her cousin.

‘You have an exaggerated opinion of me, cousin, dear,’ Paul said. ‘And a biased one, I believe.’

‘Take a look in the mirror, Paul,’ Lois said. ‘Then go out and conquer the world.’

Paul doubted that he would ever forget the girl who seemed ingrained on his heart, but he also knew that Lois was right: to try to put her out of his mind was the only thing to do.

CHAPTER FIVE

The weeks rolled by and turned into months. Carmel finished her first year and when her holidays were due, she went to stay with the sisters at St Chad’s Hospital. It was rather a busman’s holiday because she helped out on the wards, but she was quite happy about that.

She began her second year with no change in her attitude towards men, and was surprised and a little dismayed when she learned that Paul was working at the hospital with a fair few other student doctors.

‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ she asked Lois.

‘There seemed little point,’ Lois said with a shrug. ‘I knew that you would find out eventually. He likes the situation even less than you do. None of them has had any choice about where they were sent.’

Carmel knew that was true. To give the probationer nurses the maximum exposure to a variety of medical conditions, each one spent a minimum of nine weeks and a maximum of twelve on a different ward. Carmel valued the experience this was giving her and she imagined that it would help the budding doctors to learn in different places too. As the General and Queen’s were the only two teaching hospitals in the city, it was inevitable that some medical students should be sent there. She knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid seeing Paul, but Lois had assured her that Paul had been told and understood how Carmel felt. She was glad about this for it meant she would be able to treat him in a respectful and professional manner, as she did the other doctors she came into contact with.

‘Has anyone else see that gorgeous doctor?’ Aileen Roberts said at breakfast one day at the beginning of October.

No one had apparently, so Aileen went on, ‘He is wonderful, terrific. He has blond hair and the deepest blue eyes.’

Carmel and her room-mates weren’t there, or Lois would have said the man was probably her cousin Paul. Everyone was used to Aileen and her ways, anyway, and liked to tease her.

‘I thought you liked them tall, dark and handsome like Dr Durston,’ another girl, Maggie, said. ‘Weren’t you madly in love with him just a few weeks ago?’

‘Yeah, and then it was that surgeon—what’s his name, Adams—Mr Adams that you said had smouldering eyes that turned you weak at the knees,’ Susan, another young probationer, added.

There was a ripple of laughter and then Maggie said, ‘You even had a thing going for Jimmy, that cheeky young porter, as I remember.’

‘Face it, Aileen,’ put in Susan, ‘with men you are a right pushover and you fall in love more often than I have hot dinners.’

‘This is different,’ Aileen maintained. ‘They were just mere mortals, but this man is a god, a true god. You’ll know when you see him yourself.’

‘Has he a name, this man?’ Maggie asked with a wry smile. ‘Just in case there is more than one god trailing about the hospital?’

Aileen cast her a withering look. ‘Connolly, that’s what he’s called. Dr P. Connolly.’

‘Haven’t you found out what the P stands for yet?’ Maggie cried. ‘God, Aileen, you’re slipping.’

‘Give me time,’ Aileen said. ‘I have only just spotted him. It could be Peter.’

‘Or Philip or Paul,’ Susan said.

‘Or Patrick,’ said Maggie, and went on mockingly, ‘But surely these are such ordinary, mortal names for such a superior being?’

‘You wait till you see him,’ Aileen said, getting in a huff at all the teasing. ‘And when you do, remember that I saw him first and that makes him mine.’

‘Haven’t you heard the expression that all’s fair in love and war?’ Maggie asked.

‘I don’t know about fair in love and war,’ said Susan. ‘But I do know no one will be fair on us if we don’t head on to the wards, and mightily quickly too.’

There was a resigned groan as the girls, realising that Susan was right, got to their feet. The matter of Aileen and the dashing doctor was shelved for the moment.

It soon filtered around the hospital that the Adonis that Aileen had described was Lois’s cousin Paul. Aileen was delighted that one of the girls was related to him.

‘That’s wonderful. Maybe she can put in a word for me,’ she said at breakfast one morning.

‘Why should she?’ said Jane with a laugh.

‘Anyway, I’d say a man like that will make up his own mind,’ Sylvia said. ‘And from what I remember from the night we met him down the Bull Ring that one time, it was Carmel he was showing an interest in.’

‘Carmel!’

‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Sylvia said. ‘She’s very pretty.’

There was no denying that. Aileen thought it a shame that such beauty should go to waste, for Carmel seemed to have no interest in men. ‘I bet she didn’t take no notice,’ she said.

‘No, she didn’t.’

‘I don’t understand her,’ Aileen said. ‘I don’t know why she don’t go the whole hog and be a nun if she ain’t a bit interested in men. Anyway, it don’t matter, she has had her chance and if she don’t want Paul, plenty will—like me, for instance.’

‘You’ll have to get in the queue for that then,’ another girl said from further down the table. ‘’Cos I will hand it to you this time, Aileen, he is very dishy, this Paul Connolly, and I intend to be very nice to Lois.’

In actual fact, probationers had little to do with the doctors anyway, and so it was a couple of days before Carmel confronted Paul face to face.

‘Good morning, Dr Connolly,’ she said, and saw that he was more shaken than she was, but he took his guide from her.

‘Good morning, Nurse Duffy.’

Carmel passed him then, giving him no chance to linger. Paul, watching her go, felt as if his limbs had turned to water. He knew then that he was in love with Carmel Duffy.

Carmel, however, seemed completely content. She still hadn’t much money—none of them had—but thanks to the second-hand stall at the Rag Market she had been able to add to her wardrobe a little, and though she enjoyed going out with a crowd of nurses, especially her room-mates, she would never make arrangements to see later any of the boys they might meet. When others did and would go out on dates, Carmel would be quite happy to stay in by herself, or pop over to see the nuns at St Chad’s Hospital.

The other student nurses would often shake their heads over Carmel’s determinedly single state. As far as they could ascertain, Paul Connolly didn’t go out much either, and though he didn’t appear to have anyone special in his life, he showed no interest in any of them.

In fact, Paul was more miserable than he could ever remember. He was finding it harder than he had ever thought it would be, seeing Carmel, going about her duties, or laughing and joking with the patients or her friends, but treating him so formally.

However, there was nothing to be gained by mooning over her, he knew, so, coaxed and bullied by his friends, he did start to go out more, though he still took no more notice of the student nurses than he ever had.

That year, Paul volunteered to work over Christmas and so did Carmel. Lois was having that Christmas off and so was Sylvia. Jane was on duty, but courting strong, and Carmel guessed she wouldn’t see much of her outside of their working hours. She told herself she didn’t mind this, but for the first time she felt left out and knew she would be glad when the others were back and Christmas over and done with.

She was surprised how good Paul was in the pantomime, put on for the patients on Christmas Eve. She would have imagined a man as handsome and well set up as he appeared, and also training for a serious and respectable career, would not feel happy in such a frivolous production. However, not only did he throw himself into it with great enthusiasm, he seemed to be having as much fun as the audience. She saw with amusement that many of the nurses were gazing at him with more that just admiration in their eyes, and that Paul was either unaware of it, or else giving a very good impression that he was.

He also had a very good tenor singing voice, Carmel discovered, as the staff sang the age-old carols together with the patients. She felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Paul’s younger brother. It must be hard to follow this golden boy, who seemed to have it all, without a certain amount of resentment creeping in, she thought, and that in turn would make him less likeable. Look how Lois had first described them: ‘dishy Paul and annoying Matthew’.

She slipped out after the concert to attend Midnight Mass, having been given an especially late pass for the purpose, feeling the bone-chilling cold seep into her, even on the short walk to St Chad’s, despite the thick coat and scarf she had picked up for a song at the Rag Market.