Songbird

It was eleven-thirty by the time Connie made her way toward Alice’s room.

Having done her usual round, she paused at the top of Corridor Nine, leaning on her broom and stretching her back. “I’m done in!” she grunted. “Rushing about, bending down, reaching up, fetching and carrying. Is it any wonder I ache from top to toe?” One of these fine days she would search out a man with means and grab him quick. But she’d been saying that ever since her old man deserted her six years back, and it hadn’t happened yet.

Pushing her trolley, with its fresh bucket of hot soapy water and clean mop, to where a portly policeman stood sentry outside Alice’s door, she asked, “Aren’t you allowed to sit down?” She noted how he was switching from one foot to the other, and rubbing his back as though in pain.

“Nobody ever said I couldn’t,” he answered thoughtfully, “so I don’t see why not.”

“Shall I get you a chair then?”

He glanced up and down the corridor, as though looking for his superior. “Sounds like magic to my ears,” he confessed.

“Mmm.” Exchanging smiles, she asked him to keep an eye on her trolley while she nipped into the empty sluice room opposite and brought out a small plastic chair. “There you go,” she said, beaming from ear to ear. “It’s not exactly an armchair, but the seat’s just about big enough for your bum.” She slid the chair toward him. “There you go.”

Another anxious glance up and down the corridor. “I’d best wait until the nurse comes out, eh?”

“Oh, so the nurse is inside, is she?” Connie’s first thought was how that made it impossible for her to talk with Alice.

The officer nodded. “The doctor’s been and gone, but the nurse has been in there a while,” he nodded. “Just doing her job, I expect.”

“Well, in that case, I’d best go in and do my job, hadn’t I?”

Leaving her trolley outside, she collected only the items she would need – cleaning cloths and such, and the mop and bucket.

The nurse was the same one the Sister had instructed earlier. “Oh Connie, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, when the cleaner popped her head around the door. Seated by the bed, she was holding Alice’s hand steady while she drank from a cup. “I need to check another patient, and I’m already running late. Would you mind just helping Mrs. Mulligan finish this tea?”

Connie wasn’t surprised. The nurses were in such short supply that they were doing the work of ten. “I don’t mind at all,” she offered. In fact, it was the ideal opportunity to talk to Alice. “I’ll just give my hands a quick wash.”

“Don’t tip the cup up too far,” the nurse told her. “Let the patient take the liquid in her own time.”

After promising she would be no longer than ten minutes at the most, the woman was quickly away, hurrying to her next patient.

Helping Alice to drink was a slow and painstaking task, and while Alice drank, Connie spoke to her. “You’re a lucky woman,” she said warmly. “They tell me you’re on the mend.”

Alice concentrated on her drink.

“Just a little more, then you’re all done.” Connie hoped the nurse would stay away until she’d had a chance to talk with Alice. At the moment though, the injured woman was finding it difficult to swallow, let alone get into a conversation.

A moment later, Alice pushed the cup away. “Enough.” She gave a weary sigh. “No more, thank you.” Lying back on the pillow, she asked Connie, “Could you close the curtains, please?”

As the cleaner pulled the curtains against the bright morning light, Alice spoke in little breathless snatches. “I know I am lucky. I should… be dead!” She momentarily closed her eyes; when she opened them again, they were immensely sad. “They told me… about Jack.”

Connie wasn’t sure what to say, so she simply answered, “I’m sorry. A friend, was he?” She had not heard the name Jack when listening to the news, but she assumed it must be one of the men who were shot dead.

Alice gave a sad little smile. “A good man, so he was. A kind friend.” The events of the night rode through her mind. Where was Maddy now? Was she safe? She hoped the girl had kept her promise and got as far away as she could, or he would track her down, sure as day followed night. Please God! Let her be safe.

“Mr. Mulligan? “Alice, are you all right?” Fearing she had tired the sick woman, Connie made to stand up. “I’m sorry, I’d best go now.”

Alice reached out. “No! Please… I need you to stay.”

“Now don’t be wearing yourself out,” Connie said with a kind smile. “Or Sister will have my guts for garters.”

“I have to… to… get out of here.”

“Oh, you can’t do that!” Connie was horrified. “You’re nowhere near ready to go home. They’ve only just taken the drip, and who knows? They might have to put it back if you can’t take your nourishment.” She saw how pale and ill the other woman looked. “I should not be here, talking to you like this. Whatever would Maddy say?”

Alice gave her a strange look. “How do you know about Maddy?”

“I saw it all, on the news,” Connie answered carefully.

Sensing that something was not right here, Alice asked her straight out, “What do you want from me? Why are you really here?” She began to shake. “Did Steve Drayton send you? Are you here to find out where Maddy is?” She was beginning to falter. “Please, tell me the truth.”

Seeing the frantic look in Alice’s eyes, Connie attempted to soothe her fears. It was time to come clean and explain her mission.

“Look, I had a phone call this morning. It was from my friend Ellen Drew – the new singer at Drayton’s club.”

Alice bristled. “The one who took Maddy’s job?”

“Yes, but she’s a really nice girl.” Increasingly concerned for the other woman’s well-being, Connie suggested, “Maybe we should talk later. Right now, I think you need to rest.”

“No! Please – tell me now.”

And so Connie told her everything – how Ellen was a longtime friend, and that she had spoken about Maddy. “Apparently, Maddy is staying with her. She’s very worried about you. She just needs to know you’re all right, that’s all. Then she’ll leave London. She wanted to come to the hospital but Ellen said it was too risky. That’s why she asked me to find out if you were okay.”

Relief echoed in her voice as she patted Alice’s hand and said, “So now I can call her back and tell her that you’re on the mend, and that with any luck, you’ll be out of here before too long. She’ll probably pop in to visit you…”

“No!” Grabbing the cleaner’s hand, Alice gabbled, “She can’t come here! You mustn’t tell her that I’m on the mend. He threatened her, you see – I heard him!” She shuddered. “He said, wherever she went, he would find her. And he will! He will!” She began coughing and weeping, clutching at Connie’s hands.

“Hush now, hush now. Be calm.” Alarmed by the sick woman’s outburst, Connie asked, “So, if you don’t want me to tell her you’re on the mend, what do you want me to say?”

“Tell her I didn’t make it.” Alice gulped. “Tell her… they did their best, but they couldn’t save me.”

Connie was astounded. “I can’t say that!” she protested. “It would be an outright lie; it would tempt Providence. No, I can’t do it – I’m sorry.”

Desperate, Alice tried another tactic. “Are you fond of your friend Ellen?”

“Of course. When we worked together she was more like a daughter than a friend. Lately though, we’ve both been working so hard it’s been difficult to keep tabs. But now she’s contacted me, we’ll soon make up for lost time.”

“And how would you feel if she got killed, because of you?”

“What are you getting at? How could Ellen get killed because of me?”

“Listen to me – please. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Den Carter might be a wrong ’un, but Steve Drayton is worse! He’s a monster. Life means nothing to him. Maddy’s carrying his child, but he’ll snuff them both out… without a second…” Falling back into the pillow, Alice lay still, her breathing labored and her skin gray and moist.

“Hey!” Panicking, Connie was all for calling the nurse back. “Don’t you die on me!”

Drained by the whole encounter, Alice’s voice was barely a whisper. “Please. He’ll kill them all.” She took a labored breath. “Promise me. Tell them… I didn’t make it. Tell them… Promise!” She closed her eyes, leaving Connie to decide on her course of action.

She was already out the door and about to speak with the officer, when the nurse arrived. “She got a bit agitated,” Connie hurriedly explained. “But she seems quieter now.”

Blaming herself, the nurse pulled a screen around the patient and quickly checked that everything was in order. “It’s all right,” she told Connie quietly. “She’ll be fine now. I’ll stay with her. Finish up in here now and be as quick and as quiet as you can.”

For the next few minutes, Connie did exactly that. On her way out, she glanced back at Alice, who was looking at her with her heart in her eyes, as if to say, Don’t let me down. Her unspoken plea only made Connie all the more nervous.

What Alice had asked her to do went totally against her moral code. Connie had been many things in her life, but never a deliberate, outright liar. How, in God’s name, could she tell Ellen such a terrible untruth? And what would it do to Maddy, poor girl, if she was told that her friend had not survived?

Dreading her return call to Ellen, she arrived at her own little headquarters three floors down, where she emptied the bucket down the drainhole, before rinsing it out and spraying it with disinfectant. Then she washed her cleaning cloths and soaked them in the sink.

That done, she hurried the short distance to the kitchen and made herself a cup of tea, which she took to the farthest corner and sat down with a cigarette to reflect on what Alice had said.

So Drayton would kill them all. Those were Alice’s exact words. In her mind, Connie went over the entire conversation again and the more she thought on it, the more she knew that whatever the consequences, she could not go against her own values. But if she didn’t do what Alice had asked, what would happen to Maddy and her unborn child – and what about Ellen? Would they really be murdered, or had Alice exaggerated the situation for her own ends?

Torn every which way, Connie tried to get it all into perspective. But the look in Alice’s eyes burned in her memory like a beacon.

Connie had to ask herself, “If I was to go against my conscience and lie, could I live with it for the rest of my life?”

To deliberately claim that someone was dead when you knew they were not, was a huge burden on the conscience. Moeover, it was akin to opening Pandora’s Box… letting loose all the bad things along with the good. At best, lives might be saved, yet she only had a stranger’s word for that. At worst, somewhere down the years, such a deliberate deceit could have dire consequences, for all concerned.

In all her life, the plump little woman had never been in such a dilemma.