To Have and To Hold

‘You have answered your own question,’ Lois said, and hugged her in delight. ‘You are in love with Paul and I know he is besotted with you. I tell you, Carmel, if I can’t have the man myself, there is no one I’d rather he take up with than you. You’ll still have to be careful, though, for if Matron gets one sniff of romance between a junior doctor and one of her probationers they’ll likely be “wigs on the green”, as my Uncle Jeff is fond of saying.’

But, Carmel couldn’t think about Matron or anyone else. All she could take on board was love for Paul awakening in her and the joy and wonder of it. The thing spoken about in literature and poems, and sung about in ballads and laments down through the centuries, and the one thing she thought she would never experience because she wasn’t going to allow herself to. Oh, how she had underestimated the power of that emotion, she realised. Then she remembered that she still had to tell Paul all about herself and her family and she still shrank from doing that.

She decided to shelve everything till after her holiday, which despite the pleading of her mother for her to go home, she was spending again at the convent on the Hagley Road.

‘What about Paul?’ Lois asked.

‘What about him?’ Carmel said. ‘When his exams are over he can come and see me. I have my own room there and far more chance of privacy than here in the nurses’ home. I haven’t even had a chance of telling him my feelings have changed so drastically and I will need privacy then.’

Lois could see the sense of that and so could Paul when she told him of her plans. But really all his energies were centred on his finals.

At last, by early July, the dreaded exams were over and Carmel and Paul were making up a foursome with Chris and Lois the following night to celebrate that fact. Carmel was feeling very happy that evening as she was returning from benediction. It was just turning dusk and she was glad that she would be back in the hospital before the dark had really set in, when she heard a distinct groan coming from an alleyway to her right.

She stopped, her senses alerted, and listened as she peered into the gloom of the entry. The low moan came again. Tentatively, Carmel went towards the black hole. Attacks on individuals in the city centre had been getting frequent of late and had made everyone nervous. Carmel did wonder if this was some sort of trick to lure her into an unlit place. Her senses were on high alert as she moved cautiously, feeling the walls with her shaking fingers, expecting any moment to feel hands grabbing at her, pulling her further in.

Scared though she was, she knew even if she hadn’t trained as a nurse, she couldn’t walk past a person groaning in pain as if it was no business of hers.

Anyway, she told herself wryly, if anyone was to attack me in the hope of rich pickings, they would be on a losing wicket because I haven’t a penny piece on me.

All thoughts of it all being some sort of trick fled a few moments later, however, when Carmel’s shuffling feet came in contact with something on the ground. She could see virtually nothing, just a vague mound, and she was suddenly so scared the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She kneeled and put her hands out hesitantly and felt clothing, like a jacket. She wished to God she had some sort of light for she knew there was a person lying there too injured to move. More confidently now, she ran her hands expertly over the prone and twisted form, checking for any kind of injury. She could find nothing obvious until she came to the person’s head, where her fingers located a gaping sticky wound with blood still seeping from it. Gently, she laid two fingers against the neck and felt the pulse. She pursed her lips at the irregularity of it.

She knew the man needed help and fast, and yet she hesitated to leave him. Maybe there was someone still in the church? She ran to the edge of the entry and was greatly relieved to see Father Donahue in the church doorway. ‘Oh, Father,’ she cried.

‘What is it, my dear?’ the priest said, hurrying towards Carmel, taking in her agitated state first and then seeing her fingers covered in blood. ‘What has happened?’

‘There is an injured man in the entry, Father,’ Carmel said pointing. ‘At least from his clothes and haircut, I take it he is a man. I heard him groaning, that’s what alerted me, but now he seems to have lapsed into unconsciousness. He is bleeding profusely from a head wound and his pulse rate is erratic. He needs treatment, and as quickly as possible, but I would hate to leave him.’

‘I will alert them at the hospital, never fear,’ the priest said. ‘But shouldn’t we try to bring the poor unfortunate person more into the light?’

‘We should not move him, Father,’ Carmel said. ‘Tell them to bring torches, flashlights, anything, but hurry, Father. I will stay with him till someone comes.’

It was easier this time to go into the entry. When she got to the man, she felt the floor around him and the pool of blood, and she knew she had to stanch the wound. Glad there was none to see her, she pulled her dress and underslip over her head and ripped the slip into strips to pack and bind the wound before replacing her dress.

When the doctors came in with the stretcher and flashlights they found Carmel kneeling in the puddle of blood herself, as she had lifted the man’s head slightly on to her knees so that she could stanch the flow more effectively.

‘Good work, Nurse Duffy,’ one of the senior doctors said to her. ‘Now if you let us in we will see what is the matter with the poor fellow.’

‘Certainly, Doctor,’ Carmel said, easing the man’s head from her so that she could get up. One of the doctors played the flashlight on to the injured man’s face and when Carmel saw who it was, she staggered and would have fallen if the doctor hadn’t caught her arm.

‘You’ve stiffened up sitting there so long,’ he said, not understanding.

But Carmel saw that the man whose head she had cradled in her lap was none other than Paul Connolly, whose face had been battered so badly he looked more dead than alive.

‘Christ Almighty,’ she heard the doctor exclaim behind her. ‘It’s young Connolly.’

There were a thousand questions burning in her brain. What was Paul doing there? What had happened him? How badly hurt was he?

‘It’s Paul,’ she told the priest, still waiting at the entrance with the orderlies who had brought the stretcher. ‘I am going to go down to the hospital with them. I need to see if he’s going to be all right.’

The priest saw Carmel’s bleak eyes filled with worry and he said, ‘I’ll come with you.’ Carmel just nodded and knew she would be glad of the man by her side.

‘They’ll not likely be able to tell you anything for some time,’ one of the orderlies said. ‘And you really need to get cleaned up.’

Carmel looked down at herself. Blood covered her dress from the waist, though there were also some splashes on the bodice, and her legs and hands were coated with it. But none of this mattered. The only thing that did was that the man she had just realised she loved above all others was desperately ill. She said, ‘I will wash my hands but the rest can wait. Knowing that Dr Connolly is going to be all right is the only thing that counts.’

Many saw the state of Carmel as she went into the hospital that evening flanked by the priest. Then the young doctor was carried in on a stretcher and everyone was agog with curiosity.

Father Donahue sought out the staff nurse on duty and informed her of events. ‘Carmel tells me Dr Connolly has a cousin here in the hospital,’ he went on to say, ‘a probationer called Lois Baker.’

‘Yes, I was aware of that,’ the staff nurse said. ‘I will see that she is informed, as well as Dr Connolly’s parents.’

Minutes later, Lois scurried down the corridor. She hadn’t been told of Carmel’s involvement and when she saw her sitting there beside the priest, she was surprised, but as she drew closer and saw the bedraggled and bloodstained state of her, she became alarmed.

‘What is it? What’s happened to you?’ she cried.

‘Nothing,’ Carmel told her. ‘This isn’t my blood, it’s Paul’s.’

‘Paul’s?’

‘What have you been told?’

‘That Paul has had some kind of accident.’

Carmel hesitated and then said, ‘He has a head injury that was bleeding quite badly. I don’t know if he was injured anywhere else, it was too dark to see.’

‘Why? Where was this?’

‘I found him in an entry off Whittall Street, not far from St Chad’s,’ Carmel said. ‘I think he was attacked.’

‘Is he badly hurt?’ Lois asked in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.

‘I don’t know,’ Carmel said sorrowfully. ‘That is why I am waiting—to find out.’

She was suddenly overcome by the enormity of it all and the self-control she had kept a tight rein on began to dissolve. Her voice broke as she turned anguished eyes to Lois and cried. ‘Oh, Lois, what am I to do? I couldn’t bear to lose Paul now.’

‘Hush,’ Lois said, holding her friend’s shuddering shoulders as she wept. ‘I’m sure he will be all right.’ But she was aware she was only hoping.

‘It’s the not knowing anything that gets to you in the end,’ Father Donahue said.

‘Yes,’ said Lois. ‘No one seems to understand what loved ones go through, sitting in corridors like this, not knowing anything hour after hour. I fully understand that the doctors hate being harassed when they are busy with a patient, but someone could come out now and again and tell you something. You will find that when my uncle comes he will not be content to wait around. If there is no one to tell him anything when he arrives he will go and find out for himself.’

Lois was absolutely right. Paul’s father was a big man with quite a ruddy complexion. His hair was almost black, as was the moustache he sported above his wide and generous mouth, but it was his wife that Paul had got his looks from. Emma was still a very beautiful woman, with creamy skin, a rosebud mouth, and dark blonde hair.

Lois introduced Carmel and the priest to Paul’s parents. Carmel saw that though Emma’s blue eyes and Jeff’s dark, rather brooding ones, were filled with concern, Emma was also alarmed at the state of Carmel. This didn’t lessen when Lois explained that it had been Carmel that had found Paul injured in the entry and that was why she was covered with blood. Carmel was heartily glad she had recovered her composure a little and stopped crying, though she could do little about her puffy eyes, for she had the impression that appearance meant everything to Paul’s mother.

‘And how is Paul now?’ Jeff demanded.

Lois shook her head. ‘We’ve heard nothing since we arrived.’

‘Well,’ said Jeff, ‘I’ll not stand for that. I’ll find someone to tell us something, or my name isn’t Jeffrey Connolly. Come on, Emma, we deserve to be told what’s going on.’

‘Told you what he would do,’ Lois said as they watched Jeff authoritatively push open the door they had been sitting outside and march through it with Emma on his arm.

‘I’m glad he has,’ Carmel said. ‘It’s awful just sitting here.’

‘Don’t I know it?’ said Lois, morosely.

Jeff was back in a relatively short space of time to tell them that Paul had been severely beaten.

‘A right bloody mess he is,’ he said angrily. ‘Beg your pardon, Father, but it’s the thought of what some madman has done to my boy.’

‘I fully understand,’ the priest said. ‘Was it theft?’

‘Yeah, so they say. Everything was lifted from him,’ Jeff said. ‘They say he probably put up some sort of resistance and that was why the attack was so severe but, God Almighty, Father, you should see him. He has quite a few broken ribs and his body and face are a mass of bruises, but, of course, it’s the head wound and him still being unconscious that’s worrying them. They are preparing him now to go down for X-ray. I just popped out to tell you, like. Oh,’ he said to Carmel, ‘the coppers have been informed, so they might pay you a visit, as you found him.’

‘I can hardly help them,’ Carmel said. ‘I mean, I saw nothing.’

‘Well, they will probably come and question you anyway,’ Jeff said. ‘You know what the police are like. I’m going back inside now, because I want to be there when the X-ray results come back.’

‘And I am going to phone Daddy,’ Lois said, and Jeff nodded his approval.

When the door had closed behind Paul’s father, Carmel asked incredulously. ‘Have you a phone right inside the house?’

‘Yes,’ Lois said. ‘Lucky, aren’t we? It was put in when I began training, for Mother, you know, but it’s handy now.’

When Lois had gone, Carmel turned to the priest. ‘I think I’ll leave now,’ she said. ‘I know at least that Paul isn’t dead and no one is likely to know any more for some time. Anyway, this is a family time. If the police want to see me I would like to get out of these clothes and have a bit of a wash first.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ the priest said. ‘I’ll wait on a wee while longer.’

‘All right, Father. Good night then.’

Carmel had only just washed and changed into clean clothes when Sister Magee knocked on the door to tell her there was a policeman downstairs to talk to her and that she had made her office available.

Carmel thanked her and ran down the stairs. The policeman had been seated, but he rose as she came in. ‘I honestly don’t know what I can tell you,’ she said, taking a seat the policeman indicated. ‘I mean, I am not being awkward or anything, but I had just come from the church and I neither saw nor heard anything till that first groan.’

‘Just tell us everything in your own words,’ the man said, ‘and we’ll go from there.’

Carmel told him all she remembered. Sometimes the policeman stopped her to go over a point, but still, she was done in only a few minutes. ‘That’s about it. I don’t know whether that helps or not,’ Carmel said.

‘You never know in a case like this with no witnesses,’ the policeman said.

‘One thing I did think odd,’ Carmel said. ‘Paul was in an entry in a side street. Haven’t the other recent attacks being in the city centre and the victim just left there?’

‘We don’t think Dr Connolly was attacked in Whittall Street at all,’ the policeman told her. ‘We won’t be sure of where he was attacked till first light and we think he put up one hell of a fight. The doctors have verified this. Possibly because he retaliated, his attacker or attackers really laid into him. Probably thought they had done him in, didn’t want him found too soon and dragged him to the entry. We’ve been up and seen the scuff marks and spots of blood on the pavement leading away from the city centre. You saved that young chap’s life tonight.’

Carmel flushed in embarrassment. ‘Oh, surely…’

‘Straight up, the doctor told us himself,’ the policeman said. ‘He said the young man had lost a lot of blood and if you hadn’t heard him and used your expertise to stop the bleeding, he wouldn’t be here now. So, you can feel right proud of yourself. I bet that Paul Connolly will be grateful when he hears about it.’

There was a sense of unreality about the next couple of days as the news of the heroism of Carmel flew round the hospital. Carmel thought the whole thing silly. It was what anyone would have done, she said; it was nothing special.

Each day she asked after Paul but as she couldn’t claim any special relationship with him she was only told that he was ‘satisfactory’ or ‘as well as could be expected’. Lois learned little more and Carmel cancelled her holiday, not wishing to be far from the hospital while Paul lay critically ill. She knew that his condition would remain critical until he regained consciousness. This happened four days later. It was Lois who told her and she also said the first indications were that there was no brain damage.

‘He still has to be careful, of course, because he has been well bashed about,’ Lois went on. ‘And then whatever he was hit with fractured his skull, but he is now off the official danger list, though it will be weeks yet, they say, before he will be completely recovered. Anyway, because there is no brain damage, and providing he continues to improve, he is allowed visitors from tomorrow. Paul is asking to see you and, I’ll tell you, if it had been anyone but you I would have been as jealous as hell.’

Carmel had the urge to grasp Lois by the waist and dance a jig around the room, but she contented herself with a hug. ‘Oh God! That is the best news I have heard in ages.’

When Carmel did see Paul the following evening she was shocked, but managed to bite back the gasp of dismay. He was lying flat on his back with foam pads supporting his head, immobilising it. Almost a week after the attack, the bruising was well out on his face, which was a mass of colours from mauve to green, his nose looked as if it had been broken and his bottom lip had been split open and was stitched but swollen to twice its normal size. He also had a bandage swathing his head and smudged blackness was around and underneath both eyes, but the eyes themselves, as soon as he realised she was in the room, lit up with delight.

Carmel saw the pain still reflected in those eyes and felt immense pity for Paul and how he had suffered and was still suffering, but she knew he’d hate to guess her thoughts and so instead she said, ‘Hello, Paul. What did the other fellow look like?’

She was relieved to hear the chuckle she loved so much as he answered, ‘Worse, death’s door, I believe, and thank God for you. Everyone else is pussyfooting around me, treating me like a bloody invalid.’

Carmel thought this was not the time or place, nor did she have the right to say what she would like to do this moment, which was to wrap him in cotton wool herself and not let any harm come to him ever again. Seeing him lying there so vulnerable was doing funny things to her innards.

‘Come on up and sit on the bed where I can look at you.’

‘Dr Connolly,’ Carmel said in mock severity, ‘you know that sitting on the bed is expressly forbidden.’

‘Yeah,’ Paul said. ‘And you know what? Since I have been on the other end, so to speak, I have come to realise that we have stupid rules that don’t make any sense. How can I tell you how grateful I am to you for saving my life so that you can see in my eyes that I mean every word from the bottom of my heart if you don’t sit on the bed?’

Carmel waved her hand dismissively, but Paul caught hold of it and held it tight. ‘Don’t say it was nothing, please,’ he said. ‘The doctors gave it to me straight. If you hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t be here today.’

Carmel was embarrassed by Paul’s humbleness and relieved to see his parents approach the bed. She got to her feet and extended her hand to greet them.

‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘We only met the once. You’d hardly remember me. You were rightly concerned about Paul then.’

As she shook Carmel’s hand Emma noticed the easy way the girl used her son’s Christian name and she saw a light shining in her son’s eyes that had never been there before.

‘Please stay a little longer,’ Paul pleaded. ‘My parents too would like to thank you.’

‘I can only stay a minute or two,’ Carmel said. ‘You know there are only two allowed at the bedside and if Matron was to see me breaking yet another hospital rule, she really would haul me over the coals.’

Emma knew she had much to thank this girl for because she had saved her son’s life, but she hoped Paul’s gratitude didn’t run to him fancying himself in love with her. She was just a nurse and not the right companion for Paul, even if she was a friend of her niece’s. Emma had set her sights for Paul a little higher than that. However, she knew she had to keep these thoughts to herself and so she thanked the girl.

Carmel accepted her thanks graciously, although she had noticed Emma’s cold eyes and knew the woman was just going through the motions.

Jeff was as different again. Always naturally effusive and swayed by a pretty face, he was busy pumping Carmel’s hand up and down as if he never intended to let it go, while he told her over and over how grateful he was.

‘We don’t know how to thank you. Indeed, we are all indebted to you,’ he went on. ‘When I think of how the outcome could have been so different…Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. If it hadn’t been for your intervention and with you knowing what to do as well…Lois has done nothing but sing your praises. You really are a remarkable and very brave young lady. And don’t you try and pass it off as if it was nothing,’ he said, wagging his finger at her in mock severity. ‘You were brave. Those doctors told me how it was—the dark entry you ventured into when you heard Paul groan, when many would have passed by, just kept on walking and told themselves it was none of their business. But you are made of sterner stuff. As I say, without you, this son of mine might not be lying in a hospital bed today, getting the best of treatment and being waited on hand and foot, and let me tell you—;’

‘Dad,’ Paul interjected, ‘you have told enough. You haven’t let Carmel get a word in edgeways and you have embarrassed the life out of her, so that her face is the colour of beetroot at the moment. Leave her alone now. I think she has established just how grateful you are.’

Jeff took his son’s rebuke and said sheepishly, ‘I do get carried away. Sorry, lass.’

The apology made Carmel feel worse. ‘Please don’t apologise,’ she said. ‘I do understand how you feel, but truly, anyone would have done what I did and I’m just thankful that Paul has made such a remarkable recovery. And now I must leave you, because out of the corner of my eye, I can see Matron making her way towards me with all guns blazing.’

Paul knew she would get into trouble if she lingered further and so instead he said, ‘Will you come again?’ And when she hesitated he went on, ‘Please? Come tomorrow.’

‘All right then,’ Carmel said. ‘I am on days this week. I’ll come tomorrow evening. Now I really must dash. Lovely to meet you again,’ she said to Paul’s parents before beating a hasty retreat.

‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ Lois said, when Carmel got back to their room.

‘I don’t suppose so. Now everyone has got their thanks out of the way, maybe I can have a normal sort of visit next time.’

‘And mop his fevered brow, like?’

‘Do you know you are just about the most aggravating person to know?’ Carmel said. She lobbed a pillow at Lois’s head and the two collapsed in giggles.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Carmel wasn’t the only one to visit Paul—in fact, he often had a plethora of visitors. His friends went usually in the morning, the rules relaxed somewhat with Paul being a doctor. His parents also went frequently and Paul told Carmel one evening that even his brother had made a flying visit from Paris. Lois wanted to see Paul too, of course, and her parents, and yet if he was asked, Paul would have requested they all stay home for it was Carmel’s visits he longed for. But of course he never said this.

Carmel too looked forward to seeing Paul, taking joy in the fact that he was improving slowly. His mouth had been so damaged he had had to have his food puréed at first, and he was ecstatic the day the stitches were removed from his lip and he could start to enjoy normal food again. Other milestones were when they said he no longer needed the drips, and when the foam pads were removed and he was able to move his head from side to side. The bandage encircling his head was removed a little later and Carmel saw where his head had been shaved for the large wound to be stitched, although hair like soft down was already beginning to cover it.

Just days after this, the nurses began propping him up in the bed, for short periods at first, but these would be extended. Paul couldn’t help but be excited about that and Carmel understood, knowing how frustrated he often was. She visited him every day and they talked about everything under the sun, but never about anything that mattered, the confines of the public ward, which Paul had now been moved to, making that impossible.