‘What type of place is Kildare?’ I asked, holding my pencil in front of my mouth so the sister couldn’t see my lips moving.
‘Oh, it’s awful,’ whispered Aisling. ‘It’s a big bog and it rains constantly. A big wet peat bog. There are horses, and peat bogs, and that’s about it.’
‘What’s peat?’
‘You don’t know what peat is?’
‘I’m sure I don’t.’
‘It’s earth. Red, fluffy earth. You can grow anything in it. You can burn it. And you can bury things in it. My father owns a lot of land and he’s forever having men dig up people from the Middle Ages, and then an overexcited aristocratic Englishman who claims he’s an archaeologist will turn up and demand we leave it alone so it can be studied and put in a museum.’ She looked up at me then and flashed me a smile and then her eyes glazed over until she appeared to be somewhere else together, before she shook herself back to the moment. ‘It’s a good place for keeping the dead. It preserves them, nothing can get to them there. The bodies, when they find them, look as if they’ve only lain down and fallen asleep.’
‘Well, now that I know so much about bogs, I shall bear that in mind,’ I said, hoping to make her laugh again. It worked.
‘Well done! That’s impressive, Susannah.’
‘What?’
‘You made a joke of it. In the moment. I feel we’ve come on leaps and bounds – we’re practically best friends.’
‘I can’t tell if you are being cruel or not,’ I said.
‘I’m never cruel. I don’t have it in me.’
‘I still can’t tell,’ I said. I had a sharp pain in my tongue and I winced.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Aisling.
‘It’s my tongue, I think it has lumps on it.’
‘Show me. You can trust me – I’m a trustworthy nurse with a pleasant and obedient manner.’
Without thinking, I poked my tongue out, and Aisling squinted and studied it, went almost cross-eyed.
‘Sister Chapman!’ shouted the ward sister at the front of class, looking straight at me with my tongue still out. ‘What do you think you are doing! Outside at once. Such manners!’
I was sent to sit outside Matron’s office and had to explain my tongue and show her the ulcers. She waved me away, irritated that I’d been sent to her, and told me that in future I should keep my tongue in my mouth where it belonged, unless specifically instructed otherwise by a doctor, and only within hospital walls, as if I needed the additional clarification.
When I emerged, Aisling was standing in the hallway.
‘Are you waiting for me or did you get into trouble too?’ I said.
‘Did you get a telling-off?’ she asked.
‘It wasn’t so bad.’
‘Good. Would you like to come and walk in the garden for some air? It’s quite pleasant out. We should make the most of it. It’ll be cold again soon.’
Little Lost Polly
At about midnight, someone shouted that the sky was burning, and they all poured out of The Frying Pan and onto Thrawl Street, pints in hand, to see for themselves. They said there looked to be great yellow tongues licking at the heavens on this last night of August 1888. The rain was coming fast and heavy, and the thunder and lightning made the air thick and tense.
Polly was drunk, but she hadn’t realised quite how drunk until she was outside and heard herself squealing. The Shadwell docks were on fire and the flames were coming from the South Quay warehouses, full of produce from the colonies; brandy and gin. It made a hellish scene. The ash was showering down on Thrawl Street like snow. The smoky air hit Polly square in her weak chest and made her giddy, but she skipped beneath the falling grey flakes anyway, danced with some other women from the pub, women she barely knew, and giggled as the ash got caught in her new black straw bonnet with the velvet trim. As she hopped about, she slipped, landed on her backside and had to be dragged up between two dockers, her linsey frock now wet with muck. She laughed but found it harder to stay upright than she should. It was at this moment precisely that the dark mood came.
She remembered that she’d spent her night’s lodging three times over. The money she’d put aside for her bed had gone on gin and beer, and a wave of her own failings came back around for another blow. Stupid Polly. She attempted to berate herself sober. Silly Polly. She retreated back inside the pub to count what was left of her coins but couldn’t manage it. Even so, she knew it wasn’t enough and she could not ask for help from her friends because she could not trust them.
Polly stumbled outside again and staggered up to Wilmott’s Lodging House further up Thrawl Street. She’d paid for a bed there often enough – and given her fair share to others too, when the begging cap came around the kitchen – so she fancied her chances. She hung about, mentioning to whoever would hear her that she was a few pence short, but she was met with glazed eyes, castaway glances and a change in conversation. Bastards. She’d hoped that when the lodgings’ deputy came down to collect his fee, the missing penny or two would be supplied by one of her pals, but there was no such luck.
‘I’m not in the habit of letting out beds to those that don’t have their money. You know that,’ he said. ‘You’re drunk – you should have thought of this when you were spending your money on gin.’
‘I’ll be back,’ she replied. ‘See, what a jolly new bonnet I’ve got.’ It was easier
