A Child's Voice Calling (49 page)

What do I feel for her now? she asked herself. Somewhere deep down in her heart she could find some pity for this unscrupulous woman whose blood ran in her own veins; but she felt no love for her, just as Mimi had shown no love for her own mother and sister, or for Mabel’s mother. Or for Anwar Masood whose youthful passion she had used for her own
ends. And even now she showed no remorse for what she had done.

But time and circumstance had caught up with her, and her triumphs were all in the past. Scorned by her neighbours and facing a loveless old age, she was making one last desperate effort to buy the contentment and peace of mind that her penniless sister possessed.

Mabel instinctively glanced towards the door, seeking Harry’s presence and, although he could not see her, he sensed her need of him. He quietly slipped into the parlour to stand at her side and Mimi looked up blearily at them both.

‘You tell ’er, Mr Drover, ye’ll ’ave all me money an’ ’ouse to live in, the pair o’ yer. I’ll buy yer a place yer can ’ave for ’omeless kids if yer want – that’s what yer want, i’n’t, Mabel? Only don’t leave me on me own – stay with yer poor ol’ gran’mother.’

Mabel steeled herself to face those imploring, frightened eyes. ‘No, Grandmother. I have to start me trainin’ on Monday. An’ I don’t want anythin’ from yer.’

Mimi began to whimper. The tears spilled down her furrowed cheeks and her shoulders shook. It was not in Mabel’s nature to cause suffering, however much deserved, nor was she to be the judge of this woman, now staring into a blank and empty void. So she put out a hand to touch one heaving shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Grandmother. I hope things go well with yer move. I’ll call Elsie to make yer a cup o’ tea, shall I?’

‘I’m takin’ Mabel away now, she’s been here long enough,’ said Harry firmly, but added in a gentler tone, ‘Remember it’s never too late to make yer peace with God, Miss Lawton. No repentant sinner was
ever turned away from the mercy seat. I’ll pray for yer.’

Mimi’s expression was inscrutable, but Mabel suspected that Harry’s well-intentioned words would be construed as insult added to injury. Without looking back, she let him lead her out of 23 Macaulay Road for the last time.

HE IS ALREADY
waiting for her beside Lambeth Pier.

‘Yer got away from college, then?’ she says, her eyes lighting up.

‘’Course I did. I had to be with yer on this day of all days. Here, give me yer case. Did yer come up by train?’

‘No, I got the tram. Let’s walk by the river for a bit – I’m not due there till two. Oh, I’m that pleased to see yer, Harry! It isn’t that I’m nervous or anything, but I’ve waited so long for this.’

They stand together on Bishop’s Walk, looking downriver. The sky is a clear, clean blue, with only a hint of summer’s end in the sunlight on the water, sending up a dappled reflection on the rusty ironwork of the bridge. Mabel’s eyes are shining and Harry wants to share her happiness, so he firmly suppresses his own feelings about the next three years.

Three years
. What changes may come, what unexpected events might occur by the time Mabel is qualified? He is certain only of the constancy of his love.

‘I can’t believe this Monday’s really come at last, Harry, the first day of September! I’ve dreamt about it for so long – and there was that awful night at Amen Corner when I thought I’d lost everything – but now that it’s actually
here
, I can’t take it in! D’ye
realise that this time tomorrow I’ll be a real probationer nurse in a cap an’ apron, workin’ on a ward, lookin’ after sick people!’

Harry smiles and says he knows how she feels. Big Ben strikes the half-hour and they turn away from the river to the Lambeth Road, to be engulfed between retailers, public houses, coffee shops, milliners, barbers and pawnbrokers; down the narrow side streets they see aproned women at their front doors and children playing on the paving stones. Motor-driven delivery vans sound their horns and horse-drawn brewers’ drays clatter through the streets; a wide farm cart piled high with bales of hay goes trundling along to a stable yard.

All around her Mabel senses the teeming life of London and her hand tightens on Harry’s arm. ‘This is goin’ to be my
home
, Harry, the place where I live. I’ll belong with these people.’

But when those three long years are up, ye’ll belong to
me
, God willin’, he thinks to himself. At twenty-two, halfway through his Salvation Army training, he has few illusions about the lives of the poor, the poverty and hardship that his Mabel is about to encounter among the patients at Booth Street Poor Law infirmary. She’ll find them very different from those at the Anti-Viv or the Bolingbroke.

They have arrived. Surrounded by a high stone wall, the soot-blackened building looms up out of a maze of intersecting streets, situated about halfway between the Archbishop’s Palace to the west and the bottleneck of the Elephant and Castle to the east, with trains rattling north and south to and from Waterloo Station. Mabel looks up at the two rows of
rectangular sash windows and tries to picture the rows of beds behind them.

They are outside the front entrance. A young woman is standing nearby, holding a case.

‘Looks a bit lost, doesn’t she, Harry – d’ye think she’s another new probationer?’

Mabel nods to the girl who smiles back uncertainly. They are about to speak when a white-painted ambulance turns into Booth Street and draws up beside two battered wooden doors set in the wall. A stretcher is taken out and a man is lying on it, wrapped in a grey blanket; the doors open and he is carried through. The doors bang shut and Mabel stares as if she could see through them.

‘Who knows, Harry, I might see that poor man again tomorrow!’

He nods fondly, thinking of all the difficulties and disappointments, even dangers that this girl has come through in the three years since he has known her. Yet here she is, as fresh and hopeful as when they first met.

‘That must be the nurses’ hostel, see, over the other side, Harry,’ she says, pointing to a four-storey block enclosed by the same high outer wall. It makes him think of an impregnable fortress and he turns down the corners of his mouth. Not much chance of snatching a goodnight kiss from a nurse imprisoned in a place like that . . .

A church clock chimes two and two more young women arrive at the front entrance, each accompanied by a carefully dressed older woman.

‘Must be their mothers,’ assumes Mabel, smiling again at the girl on her own. ‘It’s time, Harry,’ she whispers. ‘Thank yer – oh, thank yer for comin’ to
see me off – or rather to see me in! But now we’ll have to say goodbye.’

‘God bless yer an’ keep yer safe for me, my own dearest girl,’ he murmurs hastily and even though they’re in broad daylight with bystanders watching, Mabel stands up on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss on the lips. He holds her briefly, then has to let her go.

‘Dearest Harry – see yer soon as I can – I’ll let yer know how I get on!’

‘Don’t forget to, Mabel, will yer?’ The note of anxiety is reflected in his eyes.

‘As if I would!’

She takes her case and joins the other three new girls. They push open the doors leading into the entrance hall.

His eyes follow her, his lips moving silently as the door closes. ‘Mind yer come back to me, Mabel – oh, my love, come back to me.’

The door opens again and Mabel reappears just for a moment. She holds up her hand and touches her lips and her heart.

He has his answer.