The Boy with the Latch Key. Cathy Sharp
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Название: The Boy with the Latch Key

Автор: Cathy Sharp

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Историческая литература

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isbn: 9780008211615

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СКАЧАТЬ Stepney? I was surprised when she went there; I thought she was set on being a teacher.’

      ‘Rose made her leave school and be apprenticed in the rag trade,’ Billy said. ‘When she took her to live with her in that posh council flat … Gone up in the world now she’s Sister O’Hanran, has our Rose …’ His eyes flashed with mischief.

      ‘Well, that is something to be proud of,’ Wendy said. ‘Rose worked very hard, and she always promised that she would have Mary Ellen to live with her when she could afford her own place.’

      ‘Mary Ellen wanted to stay here with me.’

      ‘It’s only because Sister Beatrice likes you that you can stay,’ Wendy reminded him. ‘Most of the boys leave at fifteen and you’re eighteen now.’

      ‘Yeah and I ought to be earning more money,’ Billy grumbled. ‘Well, I’ll get out of your way then …’

      Wendy smiled as the good-looking lad left the ward. Billy was like one of her family now. She’d come to the home a year or so after he did and she’d stopped on, just as Billy had. He was a part of the place and helped out with little jobs that needed doing. Mr Morris was the caretaker, but in an ancient building like this there was always something that needed doing: washers on taps, cracked basins, stained ceilings when there was a leak in the bathroom, which Billy had found and fixed without them needing to call in a plumber. Sister Beatrice said Billy was useful, and as he had no family around she’d let him stay on, even though he was working. Wendy suspected the stern nun had a soft spot for the rebellious boy who’d done so well since he joined them at St Saviour’s. He ate sandwiches at work during the day but had his breakfast and supper with the older boys at the home, many of whom still looked up to him. Billy had gained quite a reputation for winning cups for running and football, and he still acted as a monitor at times, keeping some of the wilder ones in order and taking them to football practice in a battered old shooting brake he and a friend borrowed sometimes. Once he’d passed his driving test and could drive without supervision, he hoped to get a small van of his own. It would help with the football team he’d organised for the local youth club, to which most of the lads belonged.

      Sister Beatrice had been given the discretion to choose when her children were ready to move on. It was the one clause she’d stipulated when the contracts had been drawn up and the local authority moved in.

      ‘I must be allowed to decide when my children are sufficiently settled to move on,’ she’d said, fighting tooth and nail for the principles she believed in. ‘Moving a disturbed or vulnerable child out to a place where he or she feels isolated or uneasy can set them back years. While I agree that the fresh air and better facilities at Halfpenny House are so much better for them, their mental state and ability to accept that move is paramount. If everything is to be done in a matter of days I am not the person for the job.’

      Mark and Angela had done battle on her behalf, both with the Board of St Saviour’s charity, and the local authorities, who had wanted to impose their own ideas. However, such was the esteem she was held in by the local police, community bigwigs and general population, that her terms were accepted, and even Miss Ruth Sampson, who was still in overall charge of the local Children’s Department, had agreed that they needed Sister Beatrice if the swell of public feeling was to be appeased. Over the years of hardship she’d become firmly entrenched in the hearts and minds of the people of the area and was known as the Angel of ’Alfpenny Street to everyone. Women who slammed their doors in the faces of the council busybodies opened them to Sister Beatrice with a smile and the offer of a cup of tea.

      St Saviour’s wasn’t quite the same as it had been in Angela’s time. She’d started up all kinds of schemes to keep the children busy and formed a team spirit amongst the orphans, most of whom had known poverty and tragedy. These days the children were brought here for a while to get over their bereavement and to learn to cope with life again without the parents they’d lost, but then most were moved out to Halfpenny House in Essex, unless they were considered to need a more specialised home. Billy was different. He would never have settled anywhere but the East End of London, and because she knew that, Sister Beatrice had provided him with a home until he could find his own.

      Wendy knew how difficult it was to find somewhere decent to live. She’d stayed on in the nurses’ home for a while and taken her time before getting herself a nice little maisonette in one of the renovated buildings within walking distance of St Saviour’s, but she hadn’t done that until after she knew St Saviour’s was going to be her life. At one time she’d hoped that she might marry Andre and live in France, but the shrapnel in his head had moved sharply and entered his brain. Wendy had been horrified when she’d received the telephone call asking her to come at once. It had been too late when she got there. Mercifully, Andre had felt little pain, because it had happened so quickly. Wendy had understood that he’d been badly wounded in the war, but he’d seemed to be well and the shock of his death had devastated her, destroying her last hopes of marriage and a family.

      If it hadn’t been for the twins, Sarah and Samantha May, who had some years previously come to them near to starving after their father abandoned them, she wasn’t sure what she would’ve done. Wendy had been instrumental in rescuing them when their uncaring aunt had tried to separate them and she’d accompanied them to their new home in France when their mother’s sister had claimed them, seeing them settled and happy before returning to London. When a couple of years or so later, Andre died and Wendy had wept bitter tears, Sarah had wound loving arms about her and sung her a lullaby in French, and, in remembering all the young girl had suffered, loving her and promising her that she wouldn’t be sad and she would always be her friend, Wendy had found solace.

      Eventually, she’d made a nice home for herself above a sweet shop just off Commercial Road, but she knew Billy wouldn’t be able to afford anything like her flat on his wages; it was hard for youngsters with no family to find anywhere decent to live, even though a lot of new building had been going on since the war. If you didn’t dwell on the loss of life, Hitler had done them a favour really, bombing the slums, because there were better homes to be had now; flats and council houses further out in the suburbs. Yet Wendy hated the war and everything to do with it; she’d lost two men she loved to that awful war, and she knew she would never risk her heart again.

      She was a nurse and that would be her life, just as it had been Sister Beatrice’s, even though she wasn’t thinking of becoming a nun. Wendy sensed that something terrible had happened to Sister Beatrice when she was a young woman. It wasn’t just that she’d lost a man she loved – no, it was more than that, because it had gone too deep for her ever to recover. Sister never spoke of her past and Wendy wouldn’t dream of asking her. They were friends and relied on one another in their work, but it didn’t go further than that … she couldn’t ask personal details.

      Wendy was thoughtful as she started writing up her report for the day. Nurse Paula would be coming to take over in another twenty minutes. Wendy was visiting Nan and Eddie that evening; they’d asked her to supper to celebrate Eddie’s birthday. He was seventy-two and as forgetful as ever, but he and Nan were like family to Wendy. Alice and her husband Bob would be there too; they had three children now and Alice had given up her part-time work as a carer at St Saviour’s. She didn’t need to work now that her husband had a nice little business of his own. He was in partnership with Alice’s cousin Eric, and was married to Michelle, who had worked with Wendy as a nurse when she first arrived. Michelle had one child but had confided to Wendy that she was expecting her second, and so would be leaving, because with two children she wouldn’t be able to manage to work, at least until they started school – and that meant they would be short-staffed again. They had temporary nurses in to cover holidays, and Paula helped out when she could, but they really did need another full-time nurse.

      Wendy had just finished her report when Paula came in. She looked cold and was rubbing her hands.

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