Maddie Read online

  Claire Rayner was born in London in 1931. She trained as a nurse at the Royal Northern Hospital, London; qualified and was State Registered in 1954 when she was awarded the hospital Gold Medal for outstanding achievement. She then studied midwifery at Guy’s Hospital and at the Whittington Hospital where she was Sister in the Paediatric Department.

  She married in 1957 and turned to writing in 1960 when the birth of her first child ended her nursing career. She now has three children, Amanda, Adam and Jay.

  Claire Rayner is the author of some eighty books including not only fiction, but also an extremely broad range of medical subjects, from sex education for children and adults, to home nursing, family health, and baby and childcare. Among her fiction is the twelve-volume novel sequence ‘The Performers’, which she completed in 1986 with Seven Dials.

  Also by Claire Rayner:

  REPRISE

  JUBLEE: POPPY CHRONICLES VOL 1

  FLANDERS: POPPY CHRONICLES VOL 2

  MADDIE

  Claire Rayner

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-042-4

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

  Isle of Man

  IM2 4NR

  United Kingdom

  Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672

  email: [email protected]

  M P Publishing Limited

  First published in Great Britain in 1988

  Copyright © Claire Rayner 1988, 2010

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN 978 1 84982 042 4

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  For

  Eileen Atkins

  with gratitude for her inspiring

  performance as Medea at

  The Young Vic, London 1986

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author is grateful for the assistance given with research by Friern Barnet Hospital, London; The University Archives, The University of Liverpool, custodians of the records of the Cunard Shipping Line; John McCormick, Bostonian, now of London, England; Mr and Mrs Storer Prebble Ware, Bostonians, now of Roanoke, Virginia; The London Library; The London Museum; The Imperial War Museum; The Archivist, British Rail; and other sources too numerous to mention.

  1

  December 1948

  Maddie, dancing. Maddie with her new dress floating in peach froth around her slender ankles. Maddie in her silver strappy high-heeled sandals and real nylon stockings, going to be nineteen in just another ninety minutes and dancing at her own special party with her own special man. The most beautiful man she had ever seen in all her life holding her in his strong arms, his handsome well-shaped head with its thick frosting of deep gold hair bent so elegantly over her own dark curls. Oh, to be Maddie is very heaven.

  And then the music stops, the most expensive music Daddy could buy, Joe Loss, the very best society band there is, and the froth of Maddie’s tulle skirt settles gently after the last twirl to the dying notes of ‘Nature Boy’ and slowly, unwillingly, she lets go of her beautiful man, sliding her hand down the smoothness of his dinner jacket, shyly looking up at him, her lashes dark against her soft young skin, smiling tremulously.

  ‘Er, thank you,’ he says, courteous, of course, voice deep and interesting, of course. American? How incredible, American! ‘That was great. A good band, hmm?’

  ‘A wonderful band,’ she says breathlessly. ‘I love dancing to it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes –’ He is moving away, backwards, slowly, but still moving away, and she says quickly, ‘It would be nice to go on dancing –’ but he is going now, smiling politely, his face so handsome under the thick fair hair, and she gets more anxious still and says, ‘Er – don’t you want to dance again? We don’t have to go into the Paul Jones if we don’t want to –’

  ‘A little later perhaps –’ He is almost gone and she wants to run after him, but knows she can’t, because nice girls don’t ever do that, and she calls, ‘Be sure to find me, then –’ and smiles, cheekily, pertly, in the way that girls are allowed to but still be considered nice and he smiles vaguely and says, ‘Why – yes – of course – what did you say your name was?’

  Maddie, later, sitting by Daddy, watching and clapping as some of the men start dancing a violent Cossack dance to show off how vigorous and young they are, in spite of being fifty or more, and she teasing Daddy because he isn’t dancing too, until he gets up and pretends to cuff her and then goes into the middle of the men and dances better than any of them, his arms folded high and ferocious in front of him, his knees bent the most and his feet kicking out the furthest as he shows them all that Alfred Braham is better than all of them at everything. Not only is this the best party anywhere in London this New Year’s Eve, not only is his daughter, whose birthday party it is, the most beautiful and the most expensively dressed, not only is the food the most lavish anyone has seen since before the war – smoked salmon, roast chickens, real shell eggs, boiled and piled high, an incredible array – but he can dance more aggressively than the youngest and strongest of them. Alfred Braham is the best.

  And Maddie applauds him loudly and thinks so too, except that she knows he is also the best at other things she does not like so well. Like getting his own way and spoiling her fun. But she is good at dealing with him, for hasn’t she had the practice? And later still, when Big Ben’s New Year chimes have been counted out and 1949 and her nineteenth birthday have been given a raucous welcome, she sits with him as he drinks more of his own good brandy than any of his guests and gets steadily more morose, until he is weeping for his poor dead Bessie, the way he has wept on Maddie’s birthday for as long as she can remember.

  ‘I’m here to look after you, even if Mummy isn’t,’ she murmurs into Alfred’s ear, as he sits beside her, slumped and red-faced, sweating in the lights, as everyone else goes on dancing. ‘It’s all right – I’m here –’

  And he clutches her hand and looks at her with tears in his eyes and says thickly, ‘Where would I be without my little ones? My little Maddie, my crazy boy Ambrose? Where would I be without you two? Eh? A man is his children, that’s all a man is, his children. Only the best for you, my darlings, only the best for Alfred Braham’s children.’

  And then he cheers up as he always does and she can talk to him and soothe him more and find out what she wants to know, without him knowing she is interested. If he thought she was interested that would be the end of it, the way it had been when she had liked David Henney, the accountant’s son. Alfred had soon got rid of David, and his father too, shouting furiously at the bewildered man that he wasn’t going to put up with snakes in his woodpile, not he, until the Henneys had scuttled away and left Alfred where he wanted to be, the only man Maddie ever showed any interest in. Oh, she had learned a lot from that, last year. It had made her angry then, though it hadn’t hurt all that much to see David go away. But it would hurt to see this one sent away, so that mustn’t be allowed to happen.

  So she makes Daddy tell her about everyone at the party, every single one of them, and watches and listens as he stares round the room, the biggest room the Curzon Hotel could provide, pointing out the importance of the guests he has assembled to celebrate the birthday with his brandy and whisky and smoked salmon and real shell eggs, boiled and piled high, a sight no one can remember seeing in London for the past nine years.

  ‘Assistant Chief Commissioner Scotland Yard,’ Alfred says dreamily and b
lows smoke from his big cigar across the room at the tall man in the corner talking to a group of people in army uniform, brigadiers and colonels. ‘That’s who that is, eating on the black market like a good’n.’

  ‘Do they know it’s black-market stuff they’re eating?’ Maddie is distracted for a moment from her real interest, looking at the well-fed, well-pleased-with-themselves men eating the sort of food ordinary people in London hadn’t seen through all the long bleak years since September 1939 had destroyed an old world to cobble up a violent new and eternally hungry one. ‘Don’t they care?’

  He laughed fatly then, still staring dreamily through the smoke of his cigar.

  ‘’course they know, and ‘course they don’t care. Getting caught doin’ it, this they care about – but as long as it’s my nosh they’re eating then they aren’t in any trouble, right? It’s me that has to care. And I don’t, because I got my friends in the right places. In Scotland Yard and Whitehall and the House of Commons and anywhere it’s useful to have friends. Look, that chap there, that’s Sidney Stanley – yeah, Stanley himself! All that fuss about his Lynskey Tribunal and he still has the time to come to one of my parties. Wouldn’t miss it, that’s the truth of it, wouldn’t miss it. We’ve done a lot of business, him and me, one way and another, so how could he not be here? They think they’ve caught him and his deals, that bunch of blue-nosed prissy – agh, judges, who cares for lousy judges like Lynskey? Stanley don’t and I don’t. I just care about looking after number one, and number one’s kids. And that’s why all these people are here to help celebrate your birthday, dolly –’ And he blinks at her with round oily tears in his eyes, pleased to be sad on so happy an occasion.

  ‘And who else is there?’ Maddie says hastily, not wanting him to wander off down that well-trodden and therefore boring path. ‘Tell me about the rest.’

  At once he brightens. ‘The rest? Well, there’s Joey Lynn, related to the Salmon family he is, very useful fella – and there’s the girl from Korda’s studio – the one that was all over the News of the World last week – and that chap’s very high up at the BBC and the girl he’s talking to is one of the Rank starlets –’

  ‘And that’s Jennifer Foster, isn’t it, talking to someone over there in the corner? Ambrose told me she’s been through half the House of Commons – or they’ve been through her –’

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’ Alfred Braham looks sourly reproving then, biting hard on his cigar. ‘I don’t like to hear a young girl talk of things like that – and anyway, it isn’t. She’s from the American Embassy, that’s all. No one special –’

  ‘Are they both from the Embassy?’ It works every time, Maddie is thinking, every time. Talk about something else and he tells me what I really want to hear. Please make it work this time. ‘The chap as well?’

  ‘What? Oh, no, not him. American though. His dad’s a friend of mine. Mind you, not seen the old man for years. We were in the trenches together, would you believe, thirty-odd years ago. I’ve done my share of fighting and never you let anyone forget it. I did my bit the first time round, so this time, I stayed in London, got on with essential war work, moving supplies around.’ And he laughs, moistly, and chews his cigar and Maddie bites her tongue, wanting to prompt him and not daring to take the chance, still praying he’ll go on and talk about what he should be talking about. And at last someone listens to her prayers, and Alfred laughs again and says, ‘But, I’ll tell you, dolly, the strokes me and old Timothy pulled back there in France – fed half the bleedin’ regiment on the sugar stick, we did, and came out smellin’ of roses.’

  ‘Timothy?’ It should be safe to push him now, now that he’s launched on remembering strokes and deals. These are his favourite things to talk about.

  And he talks of strokes and deals, and also of dodges and wheezes, laughing and nodding at her and she listens and waits and thinks of dancing again with that man with the beautiful face and the thick golden hair, and feels her tulle dress whisper around her ankles and shivers a little with the excitement of it all. And then at last, he’s telling her, as Daddy always does eventually, telling her what she needs to know.

  ‘– so what can I say when he wants to send the boy over, to keep things quiet a while? No need to go into it, but it was a nasty little fuss, I gather. But the boy’s been behaving well enough since he got here, so he’s learned from it, and that’s always what it’s all about, learning from what happens, eh dolly? And he’s learned, has young Jay Kincaid, he’s learned. And working in the business for me, now. And over there, next to him, see that fella? The one with the handlebar moustache? Now I can tell you a thing or two about him –’

  But Maddie doesn’t have to listen any more. She can look at him and know him and plan for the future with him. Jay Kincaid, lovely wonderful Jay Kincaid, the most beautiful man she has ever seen in all her life.

  October 1986

  Annie could hear the bulldozers at work long before she could see them. They grunted and rumbled like angry old men, sending little showers of stones rattling down the scrubby bank beside the road as she drove the last hundred yards to the great iron gates. There had once been matching railings all along the edge of the bank but they had been taken away to make wartime munitions; the square brick pillars and low wall in which they had been embedded were still visible, dilapidated now after almost fifty years of weathering but still there, like toothless gums. She had never seen the railings herself. Their past existence and loss were just part of the things she knew about Greenhill without knowing how she knew. It sometimes seemed to her that the place had seeped into her very bones by some sort of osmotic process, that she’d been going in and out of these gates and on to the ill-kept gravel drive for so long that she was as much a part of it as were the nurses and the medical staff and the buildings themselves.

  And the patients, she thought then, as she eased the car past the awkward corner from Damsel Lane, remembering to check in her side mirror for the huge bramble that always tried to scrape her paintwork as she came past. And the patients. I ought to be in here myself, all the time, not just wandering in and out as though I were normal and well –

  ‘Shut up,’ she said aloud as at last the car straightened itself on the driveway and left the bramble behind. ‘Shut up –’ And she concentrated on the drive ahead and on her bladder, which was beginning to clamour for attention. I’m late and I hate walking in there after they’ve all arrived, so that they all sit and stare at me, but if I don’t pee first it’ll give them something much more disgusting to stare at – damn the commuters, damn the motorway, damn this place, damn me –

  She could see the bulldozers now, dirty great yellow and red painted creatures with maws like the prehistoric animals on the children’s TV cartoon shows, chewing up the ground that had once been the garden while the tall crane swung its great iron ball at the walls of the East Pavilion. There were piles of rubble where yesterday there had been the familiar red brick squareness with its high small windows and its heavy front door, and upturned yellow earth and dirty stones where once there had been a square of grass and some straggling but gaudy geraniums. Little clouds of brick dust hung in the golden October air, lit by the brightness of the morning sun to a glittering richness that made a little spurt of anger lift in her. It was all wrong that destruction should be beautiful; it should look as ugly as it was, and as cruel as it was.

  And then she saw the little knot of people standing clustered on the path beside the Pavilion watching the work, and felt so much more angry that it was like physical nausea. There they stood, forlorn and silent, each wrapped in the loneliness of their ailment, watching home disappear. These were the old stagers; she recognised them as being as much a part of Greenhill as the iron gates and the battered brick pillars. Here they had been patients for years and years, living in the East Pavilion as nurses and doctors had come and gone, staying there for ever and ever. Only now for ever and ever had ended, and they had been turfed out to make room for red an
d yellow bulldozers with big maws, and cranes with swinging iron balls. It was hateful and cruel and I loathe this place and I don’t know why I come here and I want to pee. And she put her foot down savagely on the accelerator and the little car leapt towards the administrative building on the far side of the grounds.

  And of course the car park there was full and she had to turn back to the one by the West Pavilion – which at least still looked the same, with curtains flapping at the barred windows to hide their ugliness, and the garden that surrounded it neat and tidy and blazing with late dahlias and asters – and then run all the way back to Admin. By which time the finding of a loo had become imperative and she was breathless. But there was nothing she could do about being late. She knew the meeting was to start at ten sharp, but it was hardly her fault that the M25 had been so clotted with traffic – and such clottish drivers in charge of it, too, she thought furiously – that she had been held up all the way. She had started out early enough, heaven knows –

  By the time she had emerged from the old Senior Administrative Staff Washroom, that sat on the ground floor in all its mahogany and brass bedecked splendour, and gone hurrying up the stairs to the boardroom she was as tense as a steel guy-rope, every fibre twanging inside her head. It’s being late, and seeing the East Pavilion reduced to rubble, that’s what it is, she told herself as she stood poised for a moment by the closed door, hearing the voices murmuring on the other side of its glass panels, it’s just that I’ve got myself into a state. Nothing to do with last night and the dreams and – and she took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said brusquely as she closed the door behind her with a snap and walked purposefully to the empty chair that waited at the end of the table. ‘Heavy traffic on the motorway,’ and she sat down with a little thump, rattling the chair rather imperiously, and bent her head to stare at the agenda that lay on the table in front of her.