Rosie James - Front Line Nurse

‘And I know someone else who won’t be sorry that I’m going,’ Angelina went on. ‘Mrs Marshall! She will be very glad to see the back of me! For as long as I can remember she’s told me to shut up and make myself scarce!’

Angelina looked away for a moment, not wanting to remember that one horrible event between her and Mrs Marshall that had given her nightmares for weeks afterwards.

It had been a day not long after Angelina’s tenth birthday, when both the ovens in the kitchen had stopped working. Such a thing had never happened before, and for two days the orphanage had had to buy in their dinner from outside caterers. At midday, a white delivery van had arrived at the entrance, and Mrs Marshall had been there to receive the food and carry it inside, helped by one of the children. It had been on the second day that Mrs Marshall had called Angelina out from the school room to assist her.

‘Hurry up,’ the woman had said crossly, as the two had made their way down the long passageway. ‘That van won’t wait there for ever!’

‘I am hurrying up,’ Angelina had replied, annoyed that she’d had to leave the arithmetic lesson, her favourite. She’d trotted after Mrs Marshall. ‘I can’t walk any faster! Your legs are longer than mine, remember!’

‘Always ready with a reply, aren’t you, Miss!’ Mrs Marshall had said. ‘I wish I’d been born with even half of your cheek!’

At the entrance, the van had been there, ready and waiting. The driver entered and, one, by one, had placed three large, rectangular, shiny steel pans of hot food on the table in the hall. Then he’d touched his cap and was gone.

Mrs Marshall had gingerly lifted the lid from each pan, and she and Angelina had gazed at the contents. The first had held slice after slice of beef, accompanied by rows and rows of crisp, roast potatoes, all lying in a generous amount of rich brown gravy. The smell had made Angelina’s mouth water.

‘Can we pinch a spud?’ she’d whispered, only to be rewarded with a clip over the ear.

The next pan had held cabbage and diced carrots, and in the third were the puddings, tiny jam roly polys, with a deep space at the end of the pan to hold the hot custard.

‘Come on, let’s get this lot into the kitchen before it all goes cold!’ Mrs Marshall had said tersely, picking up the heaviest pan with the meat and potatoes inside. ‘You bring the vegetables, Angelina. And don’t dawdle!’

The next few moments were to be the ones imprinted on Angelina’s memory for the rest of her life.

With Mrs Marshall going ahead, they’d been making their way along the corridor towards the kitchen, when suddenly the older woman had lost her grip on her hot pan and it fell to the floor with an ear-deafening crash, spilling the contents all over the place. And lying there in front of their horrified eyes, were the precious meat and potatoes, all floating in the gravy – which had begun swirling around and creeping into the cracks and corners of the stone floor.

For a few seconds neither of them spoke, then Angelina had put her own pan down on the floor and began trying to salvage some of the wasted food, just as Mrs Haines, hearing the commotion, had begun hurrying from the kitchen.

‘What on earth is going on!’ the cook had demanded. ‘Oh my Good Lor …’ she’d said on seeing the mess. ‘Whatever are we going to do now!’

‘That was all Angelina’s fault!’ Mrs Marshall had declared shrilly, her voice ringing through the corridor, ‘She is such a stupid child! I told her to be careful, but she would insist on carrying the heaviest pan! She thinks she knows everything, can do everything better than anyone else and it’s time someone taught her a lesson!’

For once, Angelina had been speechless. How could she be accused of something that was not her fault? How could Mrs Marshall be so horrible?

Trying to stem her tears, Angelina had just stared unbelievingly at Mrs Marshall. ‘But I wasn’t holding that pan! You know I wasn’t!’ Angelina had spluttered. ‘You dropped it, not me! It’s not fair to say it was me!’

But she was to get no further because just then Emma Kingston had appeared.

‘Oh dear,’ the superintendent had said as she’d surveyed the scene. ‘Never mind, we must make do as best we can – it’s too late to order a replacement, but I’m sure we can deal with this.’ She had lifted the lid from the other pan. ‘Look, we still have the vegetables and the puddings must be in that other one back there on the table, so all is not lost and perhaps marmite sandwiches will fill the gap, just for once.’

‘I told Angelina to be careful!’ Mrs Marshall had declared, determined to maintain the fallacy, ‘but you can’t tell her! Oh no. This one always knows best!’

‘Never mind,’ Emma Kingston had said. ‘Accidents do happen now and again.’ She’d glanced briefly at Angelina. ‘Perhaps you will help Mrs Marshall clean this up, Angelina, and then come and have your own dinner. Mrs Haines and I will take the other pans to the kitchen and prepare the tables. Everyone will soon be getting hungry!’

Then, Mrs Marshall had gone to the kitchen to fetch a large bowl, and soap and water and cloths, and between them, she and Angelina had picked up all the beautiful potatoes, one after another, and the slices of meat, and had washed the floor until all that remained of the event was a large, black stain which would soon dry up and disappear, leaving no trace that anything had happened.

But what would not disappear, ever, was Angelina’s memory of the occasion. As she and Mrs Marshall had knelt there together on the floor, not another word had passed between them. Because what would have been the point? The older woman had told a direct lie to save her face, and as an adult, her version of the accident would be the one believed if Angelina had decided to say anything to the superintendent or Mrs Haines. But it had taught Angelina one of the hardest lessons in life – that adults are quite capable of telling downright lies, and justice does not always prevail.

At the end of the evening, with everything completed, she’d stood up and gazed into Mrs Marshall’s unflinching eyes – only to see a look of triumph. The woman had got herself off the hook.

Mrs Marshall, while carrying all the cleaning materials back into the kitchen, had breathed a sigh of relief. Mrs Haines, the matriarch of the domestic staff, would have had a few choice words to say to her if she had known the truth. The cook had a quick tongue and was ready to criticise the others in her domain when things went a bit wrong, and there had been one or two small incidents recently that had put Mrs Marshall on the wrong foot.

Mrs Marshall had shrugged to herself. Anyway, Miss Angelina Green, the Miss Who Can Do No Wrong, would come to no harm over being accused. Oh no, she wouldn’t get told off. Besides, Mrs Marshall loved it here at the Garfield and couldn’t afford to lose this job. The money was good, and she had a sick husband to feed and take care of.

Besides, who cared about a child’s sensitivities? Children got over things pretty quickly.

Later that night, lying next to Ruby who was sleeping soundly, Angelina had wished with all her heart that she could tell Mr Alexander about what had happened. He would understand and sympathise with her, she knew he would, because each time he visited he always made a point of seeking her out so that they could have their lovely chats together. Mr Alexander was the sort of person you could say anything to, and Angelina had known that he would be as cross with Mrs Marshall as she was.

Now, almost four years later, the superintendent nodded at Angelina’s remark that the girl believed Mrs Marshall had never liked her. Emma Kingston had always been aware of the woman’s short temper – especially, it seemed, with Angelina who, from such an early age had been so bright, so clever, so quick to catch on. Perhaps Mrs Marshall was actually jealous of the child’s ability in the schoolroom, because she herself was not well educated. In fact, little was known about the woman because she never discussed her personal life other than to say that she lived near the docks with her ailing husband. But she was a good worker and always came in on time, and over the years had introduced one or two other women, neighbours of hers, who needed casual employment, and so far all had proved more than satisfactory. Emma Kingston had found this useful, because she preferred to engage recommended staff.