At New Street Station Carmel said goodbye to the nuns. She was sad to leave them, for they had been kindness itself to her, but they had their own transport arranged to St Chad’s on Hagley Road, which they said wasn’t far from the General Hospital.
‘Now you will be all right?’ the oldest of the nuns asked.
Suddenly Carmel felt far from all right, but she told herself sharply that it was no time for second thoughts, so she answered firmly, ‘I will be fine. I am to be met, the letter said so.’
‘If you are sure…?’
‘Yes, I am, honestly. You just go. You are keeping the taxi waiting.’
She watched them walk away and looked around the noisy station, trying to drink it all in. All around her trains were clattering, their brakes squealing and steam hissing. The platform was thronged with people, some talking and laughing together, others rushing past her with strained faces. Porters, their trolleys piled high with suitcases, warned people to ‘Mind your backs, please,’ and a little man selling newspapers from a cupboard of a place advertised them constantly in a thin, nasal voice that Carmel couldn’t understand a word of. Above this cacophony a loud but indistinct voice seemed to be advising people what platform to go to and what train to catch, though the words were as incomprehensible as the news vendor’s to Carmel.
Carmel no longer felt apprehensive, but thrilled to be a part of such vibrancy, so much life. Soon she was approached by two girls about the same age as herself.
‘Are you Carmel Duffy?’ the one with short bobbed black hair and laughing brown eyes asked. ‘Do say you are.’
Carmel gave a brief nod and then, before she had the chance to reply further, the other girl went on, ‘The home sister, Sister Magee, said we could come and meet you because we will be sharing a room. She told us you were coming all the way from Ireland. Gosh, I think that’s jolly brave. I bet you are tired after all that travelling and I bet you see a difference here from where you come from. Course, I am a brummie born and bred, and so—’
‘Do wrap up, Jane, and let the poor girl get her breath,’ said the other girl with a laugh. She looked at Carmel and said, ‘We only met yesterday and I already know that Jane Firkins here can talk the hind leg off a donkey, as my grandfather used to say.’
‘Only making her feel at home,’ Jane protested. ‘Friendly, like.’
‘Yeah, but you’ve got to give her space to speak,’ the other girl said, and extended her hand. ‘I suppose you are Carmel Duffy?’
‘Aye, um, yes,’ Carmel said, shaking hands and noting the other girl had dark blonde hair in waves, pinned back from her face with grips and a band of some sort. Her eyes were more thoughtful than Jane’s and dark grey in colour.
‘I’m Sylvia,’ the girl said, ‘Sylvia Forrester, and you have already met Jane.’
‘Yes,’ Carmel said. ‘And we will be sharing a room?’
‘That’s right,’ Jane put in. ‘There are four of us and so there will be another one, called Lois something, but she isn’t arriving until tomorrow.’
‘Anyway,’ Sylvia said, ‘let’s not stand here chatting. I bet you are dropping with tiredness.’
Carmel suddenly realised she was. It had been the very early hours when she had left the priest’s house that morning carrying the case packed with the hospital requirements and also with the clothes Sister Frances had let her choose from those collected to send to the missions. Carmel had been surprised at what some people threw out. ‘I am tired,’ she admitted.
‘Who wouldn’t be?’ Sylvia said sympathetically. ‘Come on. Let’s head for the taxis.’
Carmel was very glad the girls were there, taking care of everything, and when they were in the taxi and driving through the slightly dusky evening streets, she looked about her with interest.
‘The General Hospital is only a step away from New Street Station really,’ said Sylvia, ‘and so close to the centre of the town it’s not true. Jane and I walked here to meet you, but it is different if you have heavy bags and cases and things.’
It seemed only minutes later that Jane was saying. ‘This is Steelhouse Lane, called that because the police station is here, and the nurses’ home is on Whittall Street to the left just here.’
However, the taxi driver didn’t turn into Whittall Street straight away because Sylvia asked him to drive past the hospital first so that Carmel could have a good look at it. It was built of light-coloured brick that contrasted sharply with the dingy, grim police station opposite. Carmel was stunned by the sheer size of the place, which she estimated would be four times or more bigger that the hospital at Letterkenny. She felt suddenly nervous and was glad of the company of the friendly girls beside her.
A few moments later, Carmel was out on the pavement scrutinising the place that would be her home for the next four years. It was built of the same light bricks as the hospital, large and very solid-looking.
Jane led the way inside. ‘Our room is on the first floor,’ she said over her shoulder to Carmel, and Carmel followed her, hearing the chatter of other girls and passing some on the stairs. There seemed a great many of them and it was strange to think that in a short space of time she would probably know every one.
Then she was standing in the doorway of a room and Sylvia was saying, ‘What do you think?’
Carmel stepped slowly inside and looked around. The floor was covered with mottled blue oilcloth, light blue curtains framed the two windows and beside each bed was a dressing table and a wardrobe.
For a split second, she remembered the room where they had slept at home. The bed had been a dingy mattress laid on the floor and she had been squashed on it together with Siobhan, Kathy and even wee Pauline, who wasn’t yet a year old, while coats piled haphazardly on the top did in place of blankets. There were no curtains at the begrimed windows and an upended orange box housed their few clothes. Now her sigh was one of utter contentment.
‘Your bed is either of those two by the door,’ Jane said. ‘Sylvia and I have nabbed the two by the window.’
‘Just at this moment I wouldn’t care if my bed was out on the street,’ Carmel said. ‘It looks terribly inviting.’
Sylvia laughed. ‘You will have to wait a bit,’ she said, glancing at the clock on the wall. ‘The bell for dinner will go any second.’
The words had barely left her mouth when the strains of it could be heard echoing through the home. Carmel quickly removed her coat, hung it in the wardrobe, pushed her case under the bed and followed the others streaming, with hurrying feet and excited chatter, down the stairs towards the dining room.
The good wholesome food revived Carmel a little, although she was still extremely tired. She was quiet at the table, glad that Sylvia and Jane were there to keep up the conversation because she didn’t feel up to talking, laughing and being polite to those she hadn’t got to know yet.
Later, up in the room, she confessed to the other two what a relief it was to be there.
‘You don’t worry that you might be homesick?’ Jane said.
‘There is not a doubt in my mind that I will never miss my home,’ Carmel said. ‘As for wishing I was back there, no thank you.’ She gave a shiver of distaste.
‘Ooh, I might wish that sometimes and quite easily,’ Jane said, ‘especially when Matron’s on the warpath. Our next-door neighbour was here five years ago and said she was a targer.’
‘Our matron could be strict,’ Carmel conceded. ‘She