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Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021
Copyright © Cathy Sharp 2021
Cover photographs © Viacheslav Lakobchuk/Alamy Stock Photo (girl), Mark Owen/Trevillion Images (boy and background)
Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021
Cathy Sharp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008387679
Ebook Edition © February 2021 ISBN: 9780008387686
Version: 2020-11-06
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Cathy Sharp
About the Publisher
CHAPTER 1
March, 1938
Sister Rose Harwell stopped and smiled as she saw Nurse Lily Brown walking towards her. They were often on different wards at the Rosie Infirmary of Button Street and sometimes alternate shifts, too, so didn’t always meet at work. However, they were friends and she waited for Lily to reach her.
‘How are you? It’s lovely to see you,’ she said, touching her arm with a warm gesture. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you since just before last Christmas. I bump into Jenny most days, but for some reason we never seem to meet.’ Lily’s younger sister Jenny worked at the infirmary too and was often on the same shift as Rose.
A shaft of pale sun touched on the dark flame of Rose’s hair, where it was visible beneath her nursing cap. Her eyes were soft green and lit just now with a look of friendship and affection, but sometimes they could become as cool and icy as the deep water of a mountain pool.
‘I stopped on for an extra couple of hours today because we were busy and one of our nurses didn’t turn up,’ Lily admitted, beaming at Rose. She was clearly pleased they’d met and eager for a chat. Her hair was as dark as her eyes and swept back in a tight knot that was less than becoming but sensible for work. ‘Jenny tells me she has seen you sometimes but, to be honest, I hardly see my sister these days – she usually comes home when I’m about to leave for work.’
Rose smiled sympathetically. ‘Yes, I know; it must be awful when you work different shifts to her, because then you only get a chance to talk at the weekends.’
Lily nodded, stifling a yawn. ‘Sorry, it’s just that it has been a long night. I’m on the chronic sickness ward at the moment and we’ve been non-stop – three of our elderly patients were very ill and we had to call the doctors in during the night.’
‘Oh, I know how disrupting that can be,’ Rose agreed. ‘I’m on the children’s ward now for a few months – and that is one of my favourite duties.’ She gave a little laugh that was infectious and attractive, making Lily smile and nod in response. ‘It doesn’t seem to matter how unwell they are, children always do or say something funny. They just want a little love and attention – don’t you find?’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed it before,’ Lily agreed wholeheartedly. ‘I like that duty too – but someone has to care for the elderly.’
‘Yes, of course, absolutely,’ Rose said. ‘And we came into nursing in the full knowledge that we would care for the sick whatever their age or illness, but the chronic ward is the most tiring – so much bed changing.’ Incontinence was the bane of old age and something that upset the patient far more than the carer in Rose’s experience.
‘Yes …’ Lily smothered another yawn. ‘Look, I have Sunday off this weekend so would you like to come to tea at ours? I know Jenny would love to have you, too, and we’re both off this weekend.’
‘Well, as a matter of fact I’m off duty too,’ Rose replied, pleased. ‘I’m helping out with a charity event at lunchtime – we’re giving the old folk of the area a nice lunch in the Methodist Hall. Some of us are cooking and taking food in, others just serving, but it will all be over by three thirty and I could go home and change and be at yours by four thirty, if that would suit you?’
‘Yes, sounds perfect,’ Lily said. ‘I would like to help out at an event like that – if ever you need more helpers?’
‘How kind,’ Rose said, responding with a smile. ‘We can always find room for an extra pair of hands when we put on something of the sort – it’s only every three months or so but the old folk do appreciate it.’ She met her friend’s inquiring gaze. ‘We give them information about anything they can get help with or any free food that is being handed out by another charity, anything that may be of help to them.’
Lily frowned. ‘Many of the old folk are too proud to ask for charity,’ she said. ‘There’s a woman we know in the next street to us – Flo, her name is – and she just refuses to accept charity. Jenny takes her a cake or something as a gift sometimes, but Flo always gives her some flowers or a lettuce from her garden in exchange.’
‘That’s the problem with a lot of the older folk round here,’ Rose replied, looking serious. ‘Some of them are even afraid to come to the infirmary because they can’t afford to pay and, although they know we treat them for nothing here, they still hesitate and will never call the doctor out if they can help it.’
‘I know.’ Lily shook her head regretfully. ‘Matron does all she can, handing out leaflets at the church and all the clubs in the area but these East End women can be a prickly lot.’
Rose nodded, looking sad. ‘I’ll see you on Sunday, then – and now I’d better get to the ward or I’ll be late and that does not set a good example to my nurses!’
‘Yes, I’d better let you get on, but I’m glad we met, Rose,’ Lily said. ‘Oh, I understand you have a new nurse starting in your ward today?’
‘Yes, we do – Nurse Margaret James,’ Rose said. ‘She’s fully qualified but she’s been working in a country hospital so I daresay it will be a bit strange here for her at the beginning because some of our patients are victims of poverty in a way she may not have seen before.’
‘Yes, perhaps,’ Lily agreed. ‘Anyway, we’ll look forward to seeing you on Sunday.’
They parted then and Rose hurried into the infirmary. The strong smell of carbolic met her as she made her way to the children’s ward, where she was the Sister in charge for the next few weeks. When she arrived, Kathy, who worked in the kitchens and had married Bert, the Rosie’s handyman, the previous year, was taking round hot drinks for the children. Rose noticed she looked a bit glum but had no time to ask if something was wrong.
Nurse Sarah Cartwright – now clearly pregnant with her first child – was already making a tour of the ward with a young nurse following her. Rose knew it must be the new girl. The younger woman was slim and of medium height with shiny dark hair tucked neatly under her cap and a pair of wide dark eyes. She had been assigned to the children’s ward to make it easy for her to find her feet in the first few weeks of her duty at the Lady Rosalie Infirmary rather than being flung into the deep waters of the critical ward.
‘Good morning, nurses,’ Rose said going up to the young women. ‘Did we have any new patients in overnight?’
Nurse Sarah turned, her pretty face lighting up in a warm smile. ‘Sister Norton told me they had a quiet night last night. Oh,’ she blushed and shook her head, ‘sorry, I meant Sister Matthews. I should be able to remember that by now.’ Sister Norton had been married some months.
‘Yes, I doubt she would be too happy to hear staff using her maiden name, Nurse Sarah. However, we’re not going to tell tales, are we, Nurse Margaret?’
‘Oh no, Sister,’ the new recruit said and blushed a delicate rose. ‘I wouldn’t tell on Sarah.’ Rose noticed there was a faint sing-song quality to her voice and thought she sounded a little Welsh although the accent was not pronounced.
‘Do you come from Wales, Nurse Margaret?’ she inquired and the girl blushed again.
‘I was born there, Sister,’ she replied. ‘My father was killed in a mining accident when I was ten so my mother moved to Hampshire, where she had an aunt living. I thought I’d lost my accent after twelve years in England!’
‘You don’t have a strong one,’ Rose assured her. ‘It’s just a little lilt, that’s all – it’s really pretty and it won’t make it difficult for the patients to understand you.’
‘I’m glad.’ Margaret was clearly very conscious that she was in a new job. ‘I shouldn’t want to do that.’
‘What made you want to nurse in London?’ Rose asked. ‘This area isn’t nearly as pleasant as the countryside in Hampshire.’
‘I-I had an unhappy experience,’ Margaret said and looked away as if the words were painful to say.
‘Well, I’m sure you will be happy with us,’ Rose told her. ‘We are all friendly here at the Rosie – but I’m sure Sarah has already told you that.’
‘Yes.’ Margaret shot a grateful glance at Nurse Sarah. ‘And she’s asked me to tea at her mother’s on Sunday.’
‘Well, that is lovely. Mrs Cartwright is a really good cook and we all enjoy being invited to her home for tea.’
‘We’re having a little party,’ Sarah said and now she blushed and placed her hands on her rounded stomach. ‘Next week is my last week at the Rosie.’
Rose nodded. ‘We shall all miss you, Sarah, but we’ll all be visiting, and I hope that one day they’ll change the rules about mothers working as nurses and perhaps you could come back part-time.’
‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ Sarah agreed. ‘However, I certainly want to give my child and husband as much of my time as possible for a few years at least – but I’ll be visiting you all and keeping in touch with my friends here.’
‘Yes, you must,’ Rose agreed and nodded. ‘Good, well, I’ll leave it to you to show Margaret the ropes. I want to read last night’s reports and see if anything needs my attention.’
At her desk, Rose opened the night nurse’s report and started to read. She was feeling a little pang of envy over Sarah’s happy event. She was in her mid-thirties and there was no sign of either a husband or a family for her. Nearly eight years had passed since her last serious relationship and sometimes she thought she would never find love again.
Perhaps that was just as well, though. Rose was dedicated to her patients and often lingered on the ward after her duty was finished. She had friends and a married brother, who lived with his wife and children in the country, her ageing mother, now unfortunately the victim of old age and a fading memory, was being looked after by a distant cousin who welcomed the small income that Rose paid for her care, and then there was Rose’s own lovely landlady – surely that was enough for anyone? Rose really shouldn’t envy a colleague just because she was having her first child.
Staff Nurse Lily Brown decided to take the bus home. She really was too tired to walk and the wind was cool. To be expected in March, of course, but they’d had a few days when it had been quite warm in the sunshine and it was always disappointing when it went back to being bitterly cold. She wore a silk head square over her hair, hiding the thick tresses that had somehow escaped from the tight knot she’d worn at the start of her duty. She’d removed her cap after leaving the Rosie and the wind had got in and played havoc with her luxuriantly long locks, strands of which now waved wildly about her face in the stiff breeze. Her hair was her best feature, or so Lily believed and she’d grown it longer lately, because Chris liked to tangle his face in it when they made love.
The thought made her smile and feel happy despite the fact that she was tired after a long shift on a busy ward and the biting wind. Whatever else was wrong in her world, the knowledge that she loved and was loved made her glow inside.
‘Good night at work, nurse?’ the conductor asked. He was a regular on her route and knew both her and Jenny well, so she nodded. Let him think what he would, she preferred to keep her secret tight inside her. Chris, and their love, was a wonderful secret she could not share with anyone just yet, because his work was a security risk and he was somewhere in Hitler’s Germany working for the British Government as a double agent. Even Lily wasn’t supposed to know that, but Chris had shared what he could with her without compromising himself or his mission. He was concerned, in this year of 1938, that war was looming and he was helping prepare for that eventuality.
Getting off the bus, Lily walked swiftly to the home she shared with her sister. Jenny had her uniform on ready to leave but the kitchen smelled enticingly of bacon frying.
‘Oh, Jenny, that smells delicious.’
‘I made myself a bacon sandwich and I’ll do one for you before I go,’ Jenny said with a look of affection. ‘I’ve got tomorrow off as well as Sunday so I thought we might be able to have some time together.’
‘Yes, lovely.’ Lily smiled warmly at her sister. ‘I’ve invited Rose for tea on Sunday – you don’t mind?’
‘No, of course not,’ Jenny replied. She placed the hot bacon sandwich in front of her sister. ‘I’ll get off then – oh, there’s a letter for you on the dresser.’ She indicated the envelope, smiled at Lily and shrugged on her coat. ‘Bye, then!’
Lily glanced at the dresser and her heart caught. She didn’t often get a letter – could it be from Chris? She took a bite of her delicious sandwich as her sister waved goodbye and disappeared out of the kitchen door. Wiping grease from her chin with a napkin, Lily snatched up the letter and her heart did a little dance of pleasure. Chris’s work meant he wasn’t able to contact her often, his letters rare events, but here one was at long last and she hugged her treasure to her for a moment, savouring the pleasure to come of reading whatever he had to say.
Unable to wait any longer, she ripped the envelope open and devoured the short message:
In the mountains of a lovely ski resort. We should come here one day.
Hope to fly home for a visit shortly. Haven’t time to write more but I wanted you to know I’m thinking of you, my darling Lily …
The letter was signed only with a kiss but she knew his writing and there was no one else it could possibly have come from. The postmark was Switzerland and Lily breathed a sigh of relief. If he was in Switzerland, he was safe and she would see him soon. When they’d parted some months ago, Lily hadn’t expected that she would see her lover again for a long time, perhaps years.
It still seemed strange to think of Chris, who had once been Jenny’s boyfriend, as her lover. When Jenny had first started seeing him, Lily had believed he was one of Mosley’s Blackshirts and, as such, a bad influence on her younger sister. Once she’d understood that he’d infiltrated the dangerous political group to help bring it down, however, Lily had begun to like him more and more and, gradually, she’d fallen in love – but she would never have let him know if Jenny hadn’t told him she no longer wanted to see him. He was her sister’s boyfriend and for Lily that meant he was out of bounds. She’d fought her feelings, never letting anyone see that she was unhappy. Only after Jenny had told Chris she didn’t want to go on dating him and they’d parted, did Lily find the courage to tell Chris that she wanted to be his friend. Chris had asked to meet and talk – and then they’d just fallen in love, in a way that took her breath. The flare of desire was something she’d never known or understood before and it was wonderful. Their passion had been consummated in a hotel bedroom just before Chris left England when he’d thought he might not return for years – but now it seemed he was coming home and Lily’s heart sang for joy.
She didn’t know how long his visit would be for, but she would take every precious moment and enjoy it. She smiled as she finished her sandwich and went upstairs to bed. Jenny must have known who the letter was from, but she’d left her to discover it for herself.
A little frown touched her brow. She hoped Jenny wasn’t regretting her parting from Chris because Lily could never give him up now …
CHAPTER 2
The house in Little Lane was filthy; no one had cleaned it for months and it had never been a very pleasant place to live, although when Doris Bryant had been alive she’d waged a constant battle against the dirt and the vermin that crawled out of the walls. Since her death, however, the mould and the cockroaches had taken over and now progressed at their leisure with no one to stop them with a dose of carbolic or hot soapy water.
Danny shrank into the dark corner next to the old pine dresser that was dented and scarred with the years, hoping to avoid detection as his drunken father lurched through the kitchen door. Jim Bryant had always been a violent man but, with the death of his wife in childbed six months earlier, his temper had grown worse and worse. At first he’d got drunk just on Friday and Saturday nights, drinking most of his pay away, but after he’d lost his job in the cardboard factory, where he’d been a packer for the past three years, he’d spent most of his time in the pub, scrounging drinks from the mates who felt sorry for him for losing his missus. And now that Doris Bryant was not there to demand the rent money and her housekeeping, Jim had ceased to bother paying his rent and there was no coal or food in the house. The house was freezing cold and there was nothing to eat in the cupboards and no money to buy any, although Jim had sold the brass candlesticks and the mantel clock his wife had been so proud of, along with her clothes and few bits of jewellery.
‘Bloody landlord,’ Danny heard his father mutter as he knocked into a chair and sent it crashing to the floor. ‘Who the hell does he think he is, demanding his money? If he thinks he can toss me out, he can think again.’
Danny didn’t answer. He never did when his father was this way, just held his breath and hoped that his angry parent would go to bed without noticing him. If his father saw him cowering in the corner, he would drag him out and beat him. Danny’s school teacher – Miss Thomas – said that if Danny came to school with bruises all over him again, she was going to report his father to the welfare people. Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about that, because he’d heard of other kids being taken away from their family – not that he had any to rely on. His mother was dead, his elder brother Kenny had gone in the Navy and hadn’t been home for years, his grandparents were dead and his father was a vicious bully. He didn’t know what had happened to his mother’s only brother, because his father had driven him away with curses and blows when he’d come asking after his sister and nephew.
Danny had eaten the last scrap of stale bread when he got home from school and his stomach ached from hunger. If the teacher at school hadn’t made sure he got a drink of milk and two of the sandwiches from her lunch packet every day, he thought he might have starved these past weeks. It was bad enough on school days, but at weekends he often had nothing to eat at all, unless one of the neighbours saw him kicking a stone in the street and brought him a bit of bread and dripping or, very occasionally, the woman from the corner shop gave him a bun that was going stale. He could hardly remember what it was like to have a hot meal and a proper cup of tea with milk and sugar.
‘What are you doin’ skulking there?’ His father jerked towards him, staring at him through bloodshot eyes and breathing beery fumes over him. ‘Come out here, you little rat.’
‘Please don’t!’ Danny cried but his father’s fist exploded in his face. Another blow caught his ear and a third felled him. He screamed as the heavy boot connected with his side over and over again, and then he passed out.
Time passed and he lay on the floor where he’d fallen, only ignored because the man had collapsed in a drunken stupor. When Danny came to his senses again it was just getting light. He sat up gingerly, holding himself as he felt the pain in his head and his side where he’d been kicked. His mouth was sore and swollen and he could hardly see out of one eye. He was fearful of another attack, but the sound of snoring told him that his father had fallen asleep on the kitchen couch. Getting carefully to his feet, Danny felt his way to the kitchen sink and filled a chipped mug with water, drinking thirstily for a few minutes, before tipping the rest of the water onto a kitchen rag that had once been spotless white and used for wiping up crockery; now it was filthy but the cold dampness of it against his split lip and swollen eye felt good.
Danny stared at his father as he snored and hated what he saw. But the beating he’d endured that night would be the last that bully would give him, he promised himself. He couldn’t go to school as he was, so he would run away. Glancing around the kitchen, Danny saw an old overcoat that had belonged to his grandfather. He took it down from the hook together with the rucksack that hung underneath it. His father hadn’t left much of value in the house, but Danny knew that his grandfather had left a silver watch and chain to his mother and, so far, his father hadn’t discovered her hiding place. But Danny knew it and he would take the watch, haversack and coat and then he would leave this house for good.
He lifted the floorboard in the bedroom that hid the watch and a brass tin with some old coins in it and placed them in the haversack along with his spare jumper and his one extra pair of socks. It would be bitterly cold sleeping out under the arches, but that was the only place Danny could think of to go. He knew that vagrants slept under the arches every night, because he’d seen them there when he’d been on a bus with his mother. She’d told him he shouldn’t look down on homeless people the way some did, because they were more to be pitied than scorned. His mother had been a lovely person; she’d loved Danny and his brother and even his father, who had always been a bit of a bully – but she’d stood up to him, protecting her children.