‘Well, I hope we run into you again one day,’ Mrs Cook said. ‘And thank you once again for rescuing my son and Rosemary. Perhaps you’d like to show Gareth out, Rosemary?’
After Gareth had said his goodbyes to everyone, Rosie went out into the passageway with him and found him his raincoat.
‘It’s still very wet,’ she said, feeling the shoulders. ‘What if you can’t find your friends?’
‘I’ll find them. They’ll be in the pub by Charing Cross, I expect. If not, I’ll go on home to my digs in Clapham. But before I go, would you come out with me one night?’
It had been quite a day for shocks and Rosie’s mouth fell open in surprise. She’d met a few boys at dances, even had a kiss or two as they walked her home. But Gareth was a man, not a boy. She didn’t know what to say.
‘I d-don’t know,’ she stuttered.
‘Will you at least think about it?’ he said in a pleading voice.
Rosie looked at him through her lashes. He had endeared himself to her just by being kind to Donald; his bright twinkly blue eyes, clear peachy skin and that wide, beguiling grin were so very attractive. She liked him. But a date!
‘Okay,’ was all she managed to say.
‘Is that okay to coming out or just to thinking about it?’ he grinned.
All at once Rosie knew she would kick herself later if she let him go without a proper answer.
‘Both,’ she said and smiled because she suddenly knew that this was what Linda called a ‘twist of fate’.
‘Next Wednesday evening?’ he asked, raising one dark eyebrow. ‘I’m working the evening shift right up till then.’
Rosie nodded. It seemed an awfully long way off. ‘Shall I write down the address?’
‘No need, I know where Carrington Hall is. And I’ll come to collect you at half past seven,’ he said, and with that he opened the door and was off down the stairs. It was only after he’d disappeared out on to the street that Rosie realized Matron wouldn’t approve of a young man calling at the home.
‘Have you had a good day, Rosemary, despite Donald running off?’ Mr Cook asked as he drove her and Donald home at eight that evening. The rain was even heavier now, and the streets deserted once they got out of central London. Donald was in the back seat, almost asleep.
‘It was the best ever,’ Rosie said with a deep sigh. ‘I’ll never forget it, however old I get.’
After Gareth had left they’d had a huge tea, with ham, chicken, salad and sherry trifle. Then Mrs Cook had brought in a cake which she said she’d bought at Fortnum and Mason. It was iced like a wedding cake, with a tiny gold coach and all the horses sitting in the middle. Mrs Cook had given her the coach to take home as a souvenir. She had it wrapped in a paper napkin, along with a chunk of cake to share with the other girls when she got home.
On top of that she had a date arranged. She could hardly wait to tell the girls that.
Frank Cook looked sideways at Rosemary and smiled to himself. She was such an engaging young woman, so sensible, practical and calm, but there was another side of her which he’d glimpsed as she watched the procession. She was excitable too, full of fire and laughter, yet he had the distinct feeling she’d been forced to subdue this side of her for some reason.
He could see exactly why that young train driver rushed to help her. The little cap of glossy coppery hair, those forget-me-not eyes that seemed to question everything, the dusting of freckles on her nose and that ready warm smile were all so delightful.
‘I hope you’ll join us again on other days out with Donald,’ he said.
‘I’d like that,’ Rosie replied eagerly. ‘But maybe you should pick a place with no crowds next time!’
Frank laughed. He had a perfect place all mapped out in his mind. But he didn’t think he ought to tell her where that was just yet.
Chapter Ten
At seven in the morning, the day after the Coronation, Rosie was just unlocking the outer door which led to the day room and dormitories on the first floor, when Matron came huffing and puffing up the stairs. She had her special tight-lipped expression on her face which Rosie had come to know always meant trouble.
Rosie was still puzzling over the unexpected sour note the day before had ended on. She hoped Matron’s appearance now wasn’t connected.
Mr Cook had got Donald and Rosie back to Carrington Hall at around eight-thirty. She said goodbye to them in the hall, leaving Mr Cook to hand over his son to Matron and to explain how he got the cut on his forehead, and went straight off to find Linda, Mary and Maureen to share out the cake and tell them all her news.
All three girls were in the downstairs staff sitting-room listening to the wireless, the small room thick with cigarette smoke. Rosie was so excited that she didn’t notice the other girls’ coolness towards her immediately. She sat down in a spare chair and rattled out the tale about Donald getting lost. It was only when none of the girls laughed or asked any questions that she realized something was badly wrong.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, looking from one to the other, suddenly chilled. ‘Has something happened while I’ve been out, or are you cross with me?’
The furtive glances they exchanged with one another seemed to confirm it was the latter.
‘But what have I done?’ Rosie asked in bewilderment. ‘Come on, tell me.’
Linda, who was never one to hedge an issue, spoke first. ‘If you must know, it’s you getting all this special treatment,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’ve never ‘ad much time for Donald. So I wouldn’t ‘ave expected ‘is folks to ask me, but today was supposed to be my day off. I could’a gone ‘ome to me mum’s to join in their street party. But I was bleedin’ well told I gotta ‘ave Friday off instead. That ain’t bloody fair.’
‘I didn’t ask for the day off,’ Rosie retorted with some indignation. ‘Mrs Cook asked Matron. I didn’t even know about it until Matron told me.’
‘But why you?’ Mary piped up indignantly, her usually gentle blue eyes flashing with spite. ‘Maureen and I have been looking after Donald for years. Why don’t we get any appreciation?’
Mary was normally so easy-going and generous-natured that it was obvious someone had been working on her. Rosie was tempted to point out in her own defence that neither Mary nor Maureen ever spent more than a couple of minutes a day talking to Donald. They were kindly enough towards him, but they both tended to use him merely as an extra pair of hands on the ward and treat him as an irritation when he dogged their footsteps. But to say that would only make the present situation worse.
Both Mary and Linda mellowed marginally after Rosie said she was sorry, produced the cake and made them a new pot of tea. She was dying to tell them about Gareth, but under the circumstances she thought that might be a mistake, so she asked them about their day instead.
It was only as Linda described how Tabby had clawed at Simmonds when she’d brought up the tea to the day room, and how Archie had seized the opportunity to pick up the teapot and fling it across the room, that Rosie noticed how silent Maureen was. Usually it was she who relished telling such tales, three patients with minor scalds and a domestic with a clawed face was her idea of an exciting day. All at once Rosie knew she was the perpetrator of all this bad feeling.
Rosie fully intended to tackle Maureen about it once they were alone in their room, but she fell asleep waiting for Maureen to come up. So far this morning there had been no opportunity to bring up the subject again either.
‘You can lock that door up again,’ Matron said in a crisp voice from her position on the stairs. ‘I want you up on the second floor in future.’
Rosie wheeled round in alarm. ‘Me? Upstairs?’ she gasped.
‘Well, I wasn’t talking to the wall,’ Matron retorted sarcastically. ‘Give me that set of keys, you won’t be needing them any more.’
There was nothing unusual about Matron suddenly ordering one of the more senior girls upstairs. In an emergency they were often called up for a couple of hours. But the spiteful expression on Matron’s face and the demand for the keys meant this was permanent and intended as a punishment. Rosie surmised it was Matron’s way of exacting revenge for her having had the audacity to get herself invited out by the Cooks.
Rosie turned back to the door, pushing it open a little. ‘Can I just go in here first and tell the patients where I am?’ she asked. She could imagine Donald being very upset if he didn’t see her this morning.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Matron snapped. She stepped forward, pulled the door shut with a bang and pocketed the keys. ‘As if they care where you are! You do have such an inflated idea of your own importance.’
Rosie’s heart sank. To argue would just result in further trouble, so she had no alternative but to follow Matron meekly up the stairs.
As Matron unlocked the outer door to the closed ward a babble of noise and a stink of excrement wafted out. But once they were through the second locked door it grew far worse, making Rosie gag and recoil in horror.
The stench was appalling, as bad as any pig farm, and the noise was terrible. Hammering noises, yelling, shouting and wailing.
‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ Matron smiled maliciously as she saw Rosie’s stricken face, and she grasped her arm firmly. ‘The smell will go once they’ve all been cleaned up. You’ll learn to live with the noise.’
Rosie’s heart plummeted even further as she was led unwillingly down the corridor for there wasn’t even a comforting similarity to the first floor. The corridor there was wide and bright, the several long, narrow windows between the various rooms bathing the area in natural light from both sides. This floor looked just like a prison landing, no windows, only dozens of locked doors, each with a small viewing panel. Even the ceiling was lower, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere, and it was lit by harsh strip lighting.
As Rosie passed along and she saw a grotesque face flattened against one of these panels, tongue lolling out, eyes rolling, all the revulsion she’d felt on her first night in Carrington Hall came back with a vengeance. She had always been so curious about this floor, but all at once she sensed it was going to be far worse than even her wildest imaginings.
As they reached the office, which was at the far end of the corridor, Saunders, the male chargehand, was just putting on a short-sleeved maroon jacket that matched his trousers. Staff Nurse Aylwood was sitting at the desk, checking some notes. They both looked round as Matron came in with Rosie.
After the oppressive atmosphere in the corridor, the office was surprisingly pleasant with a view of the fields beyond the back garden and an early morning breeze coming through an open window.
‘Smith will be working with you in future,’ Matron said curtly, without even the most cursory of introductions. ‘She thinks she’s a cut above the rest of the staff, so start her with an initiation into the morning routine immediately. That should cut her down to size.’
As Saunders and Aylwood looked at Rosie with unmistakable hostility, she quaked with fear. They were both very big people, and she felt dwarfed by them. Saunders was some six foot one or two, and perhaps fourteen or fifteen stone. Aylwood’s height was not so apparent while she was sitting down, but her shoulders and forearms were hugely masculine, and her eyes as dead and cold as a cod on a fishmonger’s slab.
‘It’s no picnic up here,’ Aylwood said in a voice as cold and unwelcoming as her eyes. ‘So you’ll do exactly as I tell you. This is no place for giggling squeamish schoolgirls.’
Rosie looked at the three adults and saw a similar malevolent look on all their faces. Saunders’s pale eyes narrowed and he smirked. Aylwood was now standing, her big arms folded across her chest, and she was sizing up Rosie with clear resentment. Matron’s close-set eyes glinted with pleasure. All at once she knew they were all in league in some way.
From down the corridor came a guttural bellowing accompanied by frantic thumping on the door. Rosie’s blood turned to water.
Matron turned and left without another word. As her feet tapped off down the corridor, both Aylwood and Saunders took down large green rubber aprons from a hook on the wall and put them on over their uniforms.
‘Scared?’ Aylwood asked, raising one thick grey eyebrow. She had a very deep voice with a hint of a Newcastle accent.
Rosie nodded. She saw no point in trying to hide it.
Aylwood gave a ghost of a smile, but there was no sympathy in it. Her face had an unhealthy grey tinge, her skin looked as if it was stretched over her bony features. ‘Well, that’s the first thing you have to overcome then,’ she said. ‘They’re animals up here, and they sense fear and play up to it. Don’t give ‘em an inch and don’t ever turn your back on them.’
For the first time in her life, Rosie was tongue-tied. She wondered why just yesterday she’d been allowed to be so happy, then today it was all snatched away.
Saunders handed her a rubber apron too. ‘It’s got its compensations up here,’ he said with a leer. ‘Once they’re cleaned and fed, there’s nothing else to do.’
Aylwood gave him a peculiar look. Rosie couldn’t tell if it was disapproval or warning. ‘Come with us now,’ she said, nudging Rosie out of the door and into the corridor. ‘You’ll just observe this morning, but mind you watch us closely because tomorrow’s my day off and you’ll be taking my place with Saunders. We have to work fast to get them all cleaned up before we feed them.’
Rosie had never considered herself to be squeamish. Right from when she was a small child she’d emptied buckets of slops, seen rabbits skinned and chickens gutted. Since coming to Carrington Hall she’d seen so many unpleasant sights and cleaned up so many disgusting messes that she thought there could be little more to shock her. But when Aylwood unlocked that first door she reeled back in disgust. It was like a stinking medieval dungeon. She had to clamp her hand over her nose and mouth to fight the nausea.
The room was around nine foot long and perhaps six foot wide, almost dark because the only light came from a twelve-inch barred window right up by the ceiling. The patient, she couldn’t tell if it was male or female as its hair was cropped short, was crouched on the floor, daubed with faeces. It was making a low moaning sound, rocking back and forth on its heels, face hidden in its arms. The bed and floor were as filthy as the patient and the smell so appalling Rosie couldn’t breathe. As Saunders and Aylwood marched in to grab the patient’s arms and pull it to its feet, it let out a snarl of anger.