A Mother's Duty (34 page)

Teddy’s reaction was a bit different to Mick’s. He gave the baby a cursory glance and said to Ben, ‘He’s a threat to you, mate. You won’t be the baby in the family anymore, so there’ll be no more spoiling, shrimp.’ He then went off to change his clothes.

Ben gazed down at the baby but could not see how he could be a threat. He was so tiny in comparison with him and, besides, his mother did not seem to be giving him any more attention than she did the cat. He went out to ride his tricycle, practising whistling, which he had just managed to master.

It was a couple of weeks before John realised that Annie was bottle-feeding little John. The baby seldom woke in the night and Kitty breast-fed him first thing in the morning and last thing at night when he was around. There was another thing that was bothering John about the baby. He had put off saying anything because he knew she was disappointed, but now something had to be done. He wasted no more time seeking her out.

He found her in reception where she was making out menus for the following week. ‘Why is Annie bottle-feeding the baby?’

‘It’s better for me,’ said Kitty shortly, not looking up.

‘But what about him? It isn’t better for him, Kit,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘What’s up with you? You can’t say you haven’t any breast milk. I know you have.’

Her head lifted. There were dark circles beneath her eyes because even though the baby slept through the night, she did not. ‘It tires me out feeding him,’ she said.

His chestnut brows came together. ‘How does it do that? If you’re feeding him you’re sitting down. Feeding him makes you rest, Kit. He needs the goodness that’s in your milk. It makes him stronger to fight disease. And besides bottle-fed babies can end up with upset tummies.’

‘Annie knows to boil the bottles and teats.’ She lowered her head again and carried on writing, but her insides were tying themselves in knots.

John made an exasperated noise and wrenched the fountain pen out of her hand. ‘That’s beside the point. And while I’m at it, will you stop putting pink bonnets on him! I know you’d have liked a girl but he’s a boy and I won’t have you making a cissie out of him. Is that clear, Kit?’

‘Perfectly clear.’ She stared at him, wanting to throw herself in his arms, cry against his shoulder and be comforted but the thought that he had managed to give Margaret a daughter and not her held her back. He had failed her.

‘Good.’ His expression softened and his eyes searched her face, coming to rest on the unhappy droop of her mouth. ‘Kit, I think it’s time I took over more of the running of this place.’

A shock rippled through her. ‘No! My mother left it to
me. To me! Her daughter!
’ Her voice trembled. ‘I can manage perfectly well!’

‘No, you can’t,’ insisted John. ‘You’re overtiring yourself. I’ve watched you at work for over a year now and I think it’s time I promoted myself from general dogsbody to manager while you put in more time being a mother.’

‘I don’t want to put in more time being a mother,’ she yelled, flinging the menu cards on the floor. ‘This is my place not yours! That baby! He’s yours! Why don’t you look after him and I – and I …’ Her voice broke and she brushed past him and ran out of the hotel.

She did not stop running until she came to St John’s Gardens behind St George’s Hall. There she sank onto a seat near the memorial statue to the Liverpool King’s Regiment, horrified with the way she had behaved. She did not know what to do. She felt as if her mind and body were encased in a desolation so intense that it was as if she had been bereaved. He would have her locked away. There was something unnatural about a mother who did not want to love her own baby. Love. How could she love it when she longed for that dream baby which had shared her life for the last nine months. How?

After a while she dragged herself to her feet and turned to make her way home. It was then she saw John sitting on a bench a few yards away. He stood and came towards her, stopping a foot or so in front of her. He looked so unhappy that unexpectedly Kitty’s eyes filled with tears and there was a tightness in her chest which made it hard for her to breathe. She held a tentative hand out to him, which he grasped and pulled through his arm. Neither of them spoke on that walk back to the hotel but she no longer felt so alone.

The menu cards were still scattered on the floor and she withdrew her arm and picked them up. He went into the kitchen and by the time she followed he had poured out two cups of tea and was sipping his. She sat and looked at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

He nodded. ‘Are you feeling better now?’

‘Better than I was.’

‘Good. Drink your tea.’

She did so, relieved that he had not turned down her apology or gone on about her caring for the baby. He only seemed concerned about her wellbeing.

The bell rang in reception and John left the kitchen. Kitty went over to the sink and washed the cups, gazing out of the window as she did so. Annie was sitting on a chair in the sun, nursing the baby. She was singing a lullaby and suddenly Kitty frowned. What was Annie thinking of? She went outside and called, ‘You’ll spoil him. Put him in the pram.’

‘You can’t spoil a baby with love,’ said Annie with a hint of defiance. ‘You should try it yerself.’

Kitty felt a spurt of anger. How dare Annie, who had never had a child, tell her how to look after her own baby!

Kitty walked down the yard. ‘Too much mother-love can restrict a child’s development. Mothers can be overprotective so children have trouble in developing confidence by trying things out for themselves.’ She stared at Annie. ‘I read that in the
Echo
.’

‘He’s only a baby,’ said Annie, shaking her head and looking worried. ‘A baby! It’s not his fault he’s not a girl.’

Kitty’s eyes glinted. ‘I know that! There’s a pot of tea in the kitchen so go and pour yourself one. Then go and brush the stairs.’

Annie opened her mouth but Kitty said, ‘Go, please!’

Her cousin put the baby back in the pram and Kitty sat in the chair she had vacated and held her face up to the sun. Little John whimpered but she ignored him. The whimper became a grizzle and the grizzle a cry. She stood and went over to the pram and shook it. For a moment he stopped crying but she could hear him sucking the back of his hand. She lowered the hood, lifted him out and immediately he turned his head and butted her breast rooting with an open mouth. For a moment she was undecided then she began to unbutton her blouse.

Once again she sat in the sun struggling with her resentment, grief and sense of failure. Why God? Why couldn’t he have been a little girl? So many of her neighbours and acquaintances had said how nice it would have been for her to have a little girl for a change. A daughter who could understand and share the feminine things of life, but it wasn’t to be.

Her son tugged on her nipple and she looked down at him. A baby!
He’s only a baby
, she thought, recalling Annie’s words.

‘I know it’s not your fault you’re not a girl,’ she said aloud. ‘I know!’

He looked up at her. His eyelashes had uncurled themselves and were long, luxurious and tipped with gold like his father’s. She thought of John’s pleasure in him and of how he would have forgone that pleasure because he had not wanted to risk her life. Her eyes filled with tears. She closed her eyelids on them, trying to force them back, but they trickled over and down her cheeks. She thought about how it would have been for him and her boys if she had died, and life was suddenly very sweet.

Slowly she began to relax, aware that the only noises penetrating the sunny yard were those of the suckling baby and a pigeon cooing under the eaves. The dream daughter faded and the reality of the child in her arms took over. At least she knew how to handle boys.

John found them there half an hour later and thought at first Kitty had dozed off. The baby’s head nestled against her shoulder and a strand of his silky nut brown hair was curled round one of her fingers. He thought he had never seen such a beautiful sight and his heart swelled with emotion. Then Kitty’s eyelashes fluttered open and for a moment his love and pride of possession was spoilt by fear. Then she smiled and he dared to kiss her.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, she said quietly, ‘I can’t feed him all the time, John. I can’t give up everything just to look after him.’

He was still a moment and she waited with her breath catching in her throat. ‘Just give him what you gave your other sons. That’s all I ask,’ he said.

She nodded and their lips met again. Then, with her carrying the baby, they went up the yard. Once inside the hotel, she changed the baby’s nappy before settling him back in his pram. Then she went and finished the menus.

Everything in Kitty’s life did not become smooth sailing just because she had found it in her heart to accept her husband’s dictate and deal positively with her disappointment. She was less tired, though, because almost immediately John made several changes. He had had a telephone installed, hired a couple of girls fresh from school to come in daily and he bought a Maple washing machine. He also told Kitty that it was wrong of her to expect Mick to work in the hotel after he had finished school.

The latter was the biggest surprise. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘He knows the ropes. He’ll be a big help.’

John leaned over the chiffonier towards her and said, ‘I know you want him here, Kit, but stop trying to control his life. Let go of the reins. It would be a waste of his talents if he took over what I presume was Jimmy’s role in the hotel. The lad’s had a grammar-school education. Let him do his own choosing or he might resent your actions in later life.’

She was shocked by his words. She only wanted Mick to be secure and not have to worry about getting the sack from another employer.

As soon as her eldest son arrived home she spoke to him but did not immediately say what John had said. Instead she asked Mick what he thought of working in the hotel as a full-time job.

There was a pause before he answered. ‘I know it’s what you want, Ma, but it’s not what I want.’

She kept her voice brisk. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’d like to do something with my calligraphy, but exactly what I don’t know.’

‘What is there?’

He shrugged. ‘I could write signs for shops and things and there’s illuminated addresses but it’s not what you’d call secure work and I’m young and inexperienced. Probably the most sensible thing would be to get a job as a clerk in an office.’

‘A shipping office?’ she said with a stir of interest.

‘Maybe. Although I did see an advertisement a few weeks ago for the Customs and Excise, so I wrote after a job there. It would be pretty secure, I’m sure. They told me to apply again when I was seventeen.’ He hesitated. ‘Perhaps I could work here until my next birthday?’

A smile broke over her face and she squeezed his arm. ‘That’s fine with me. You’re talking now like someone who’s got their head screwed on right. Have a break. Take Nelson for a walk. He’s been barking like mad since he heard your voice.’

With Mick working with them for the moment and more help about the place, John suggested they might have a few days away. Maybe August when business was slack. Nancy was still with them, although for how long they did not know. She and Malcolm Galloway were seeing more of each other, but John doubted she would be leaving them just yet.

‘Where were you thinking of going?’ asked Kitty. ‘Blackpool? Llandudno?’

‘Scotland.’ He said the word almost casually, pulling her against his shoulder and kissing the corner of her mouth. ‘I haven’t told you before but Uncle Donald left me his cottage near Oban.’

‘A cottage!’ She immediately had visions of a thatched roof and roses round the door, of a garden full of hollyhocks and tall daisies. Her head twisted on the pillow and she tried to see his face in the dark. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because it’s not up to much. There’s no mains water or sewage. No gas, no electricity! It’s oil lamps, rainwater and an outside privy. But it would probably do us for a change for a few days and I’m sure the boys would enjoy it. There’s good walking and there’s the loch for fishing.’

Kitty’s pretty picture vanished and her heart sank. ‘What about cooking?’

‘There’s the fire and an oven.’ He added rapidly, ‘I know it sounds primitive, Kit. That’s because it is. But it’s beautiful country and if we went it would mean I could go and see my grandfather.’

‘Your grandfather?’ she said carefully.

‘Hmmm!’ He kissed the corner of her mouth again. ‘I thought I’d take little John to see him.’

There was a pause whilst she thought that one over. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you just go up there with him on your own?’

‘You can’t be serious. He’s a baby! I couldn’t cope with him on my own. I need you!’

‘But it sounds such hard work!’

‘You won’t have to do any housework.’ He hugged her closer and kissed her full on the mouth. ‘There’s only two rooms and a scullery. It’ll be almost like camping out. The boys’ll enjoy it.’

Kitty thought,
If he says the boys’ll enjoy it once more I’ll scream.
‘I thought this holiday was for me,’ she said.

‘It is! It’ll be a change for you.’

A change from hard work to harder work
, she thought. ‘Am I allowed to think about it?’

‘Of course! August is a few weeks away yet. See how you feel after the tunnel opening. You might be glad of a bit of peace and quiet in the country by then.’

The opening of the Mersey tunnel was only a week away. The King and Queen were coming to do the honours and there was to be a Grand Parade with a cast of thousands. Liverpool was going to be bursting at the seams.

Maybe John was right, thought Kitty, as she stood wedged among the crowd watching the procession. It was warm and sticky and it felt as if the whole city had turned out. There were floats and people on horseback dressed in fancy dress and a lot of flag waving. It made one feel proud. The actual opening of the tunnel was no different. Thousands and thousands of people lined up to see the royal couple arrive in front of the tunnel entrance at the bottom of St John’s Lane. The sun blazed and Kitty longed for a cool breeze and no people.