Keepsake (19 page)

Bracing himself, he dashed on tiptoe into the yard, at the same time pulling his cuffs down over his hands as a means of protection, and in an instant had reached through the open window and had snatched the steaming pie from where she had displayed it, and was in the lane running before the woman could even cry out. Fleeing to a derelict shed, he kicked the door shut behind him and, heart soaring in triumph, lifted the hot plate to his nostrils in an effort to distinguish the contents of the pie. Steak, he thought…or some sort of meat anyway. A fresh stream of saliva gushed into his mouth. It didn’t matter what variety it was, the surprise of biting into it would be equally thrilling. Wasting no more time he used his penknife to forge a way in and awkwardly scooped a portion into his mouth – immediately cursing and wafting as scalding gravy dribbled down his chin. Oh, but it was glorious!

Again and again he attacked it in the manner of a dog, drawing in quick gulps of air to cool his mouth between bites, gorging and licking and slurping, eating every bit of it himself, and, finally replate, delivering a long ecstatic belch.

Then he took a deep breath and looked down at the empty plate – and all at once felt sick. Sick with pie, sick with guilt. Whilst seeing no wrong in pilfering from the
masters who could afford it, he had never stooped so low as to rob his neighbours. What kind of charlatan stole another’s dinner? And he hadn’t even saved any for Etta.

If the guilt was bad then it was to be exacerbated upon reaching home, for whilst he had been stuffing his face with pie his wife was in the throes of labour.

Pacing the floor, clutching her back, Etta wheeled at his entry, her expression a mixture of relief and annoyance. ‘Where have you been? You said you’d be here at –’ Her criticism was displaced by a long drawn-out groan and she held on to a chair to steady herself.

Immediately he came to her, hovering ineffectually, trying to support her huge belly. ‘Ett, how long have you been like this?’

‘
Hours!
’ She had been plagued by a nagging backache since last night, but had not recognised it for what it was until, just after her husband had left for work, an unstoppable waterfall had occurred.

He stared helplessly into her contorted face. ‘What shall I do?’

The contraction was beginning to recede. Etta released her breath and told him, ‘Fetch the midwife.’

‘But will you be all right on your own?’

‘I’ll have to be, shan’t I? Now hurry!’ Irritated and terrified, Etta gave him a shove, desperate to have someone here who knew what they were doing, to have this ordeal over.

Marty rushed back outside, along the alley and into the street, dithering there for a second over which direction to take, for the midwife’s address had completely evaporated in panic. Thankfully, after a moment’s swearing it came to him and, running full pelt for almost a mile, he was to find the woman at home. Mrs Dowd being halfway through lunch, the return journey was to be delayed. Hovering whilst his elderly companion finished off her bread and dripping, anxious to assuage his wife’s concern, he told the midwife, ‘I’ll run on ahead if you like!’

She did not share his haste, chewing leisurely. ‘Carry my bag for me, would you, dear? I’ll follow on when I’m done.’

He belched, apologised, grabbed the satchel and fled back along Walmgate, leaving the old woman to sup her tea.

When he got back, Etta’s pacing had become even more agitated. Marty remained by her side, feeling helpless at being unable to alleviate her pain. Mrs Dowd took an age. On finally arriving she seemed no less casual as she waddled in, took a brief, authoritative look at Etta, packed her off to bed, then said to Marty, ‘Shall we have the kettle on and have a cup of tea? In all the haste I never got to finish mine.’

His jaw dropped. ‘Aren’t you going up with her?’

She tried to calm him with a laugh. ‘She’ll be ages yet. Might as well sort out my fee whilst we’re at it.’

‘You want it now?’ He was amazed that she could be so mercenary whilst Etta’s groans could still be heard downstairs.

‘Are you telling me you haven’t got it?’ Mrs Dowd looked suspicious.

‘No! Of course I have.’ Fortunately he had kept five shillings in a pot on the mantel and delved into it now, for there seemed in her attitude a threat to leave if he didn’t cough up.

Pocketing the coins, she instructed him again to make the tea, which he did. Far too restless to join her in a cup, and becoming aware that she smelt like overripe cheese, he headed for the stairs.

‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ she boomed.

‘To see my wife.’ Under her eagle eye he was made to feel an intruder in his own house, and his gaze dropped to the greasy stain on the bosom of her serge dress. ‘If that’s all right,’ came his mumbled addition.

‘And what use will you be?’ asked the big woman airily.

Marty bristled yet felt powerless. If he argued with her
she might leave, and then where would he be?

But then she seemed to undergo a change of heart and flicked her hand at him. ‘Oh, go if you must – but I don’t want you under my feet when I do come.’

Granted permission, he bounded upstairs and held his wife’s hand, though he was forced to acknowledge that the midwife was right, Etta didn’t even seem to want him there.

After an unhurried cup of tea, Mrs Dowd finally made an appearance, huffing slowly up the staircase with her greasy old satchel and proceeding to lay its contents out on the bare floorboards.

Gripping Etta’s hand, Marty’s worried eyes examined the midwife’s accoutrements: a ball of string, a pot of what looked like lard, and other unrecognisable objects.

‘Off you pop now, young fellamelad,’ ordered Mrs Dowd.

Thankful to be released, Marty bent to murmur in Etta’s ear as she writhed in agony. ‘You’ll be all right now, love, Mrs Dowd’ll take care of you.’ And with an anxious backwards glance he left the women to their business.

But instead of the midwife making the situation better, it grew steadily noisier. Downstairs, trying and failing to occupy himself by repairing his boots, he was alarmed at the crescendo – his mother hadn’t made such a din when giving birth to his younger siblings. The volume became so bloodcurdling that he slapped his hands over his ears in an effort to block it out, though this was futile. Etta’s yells would have pierced armour. Unable to bear it, he strode into the yard but the screams were to follow. Whilst he walked back and forth, a neighbour came out to the privy, glanced at him sympathetically, but was too wary to offer help. Embarrassed and upset at the thought of Etta in such torment, Marty quickly went back indoors – sweet Jesus, how much longer could this go on?

‘Is everything all right up there?’ he called aloft.

Receiving no answer, he took a few steps up the staircase,
not daring to go further, watching Mrs Dowd’s black-stockinged ankles below the old serge dress, the huge tattered slippers galumphing around the bed.

‘Let’s slap some grease on, dear, and make its passage easier!’

Her mind and body overtaken by another fearsome contraction, Etta was barely conscious of the jolly voice, the dirty old fingernails dipping into lard that was coated in dust, her only response to squeal long and loud.

Creeping higher, Marty blanched at the horrible indignities perpetrated upon his wife and promptly ducked away, though out of fear he demanded again, ‘Is everything all right?’

This time Mrs Dowd answered cheerily, ‘Fine enough, lovey!’

‘Are you sure? She sounds in terrible pain.’

The midwife shuffled over to look down at him, the revolting cheesy smell wafting from her and her manner infuriatingly calm and somewhat belittling. ‘Everything’s normal. Eh, you young chaps – you’re nobbut a bairn yourself – stop worriting.’

Annoyance flared at her derogatory tone but he tried not to let it show. ‘I can’t help it! My mother didn’t scream so loud.’

In a moment of respite, Etta overheard and misinterpreted his words, and before her body was seized by another contraction she vented her fury: ‘Oh, I suppose
she
laughed! I suppose
she
gave birth between washing the sheets and mangling and stirring the bloody stew at the same time – aagh!’ Her face was riven with venom and agony and a long drawn-out groan overtook the oaths.

Afraid to see those pale and intelligent features so contorted, Marty shrank inside himself, not recognising his wife at all.

The agony went on all afternoon.

Outside, the rest of the world carried on as normal, many
of the inhabitants of Walmgate gone to the local stray to perform an Easter custom. Children who had spent hours diligently painting patterns onto hard-boiled eggs now hurled them down the grassy incline and raced excitedly after them, the idea being that the shells should smash at the bottom and so complete this ancient fertility rite; but the slopes of Low Moor were too gentle, the eggs’ journey constantly interrupted by hummocks of grass or, even worse, a cowpat, and in the end the shells had to be broken by hand. After a rare visit to church for the parents, the Lanegan children had also taken part in this festivity, then had seated themselves beneath a budding chestnut tree where they picked off the shells bit by bit, and, despite the whites being stained with red and green paint, had enjoyed their eggs as a picnic tea before continuing their stroll to the nearby village of Heslington, from where they were now making their way home.

It was incredibly warm for the time of year; the sun still as bright now as it had been all day, the sky as blindingly blue, the fields a-skitter with lambs. Amidst such enjoyable milieu, Aggie was in benevolent mood and, spurred on by watching the frolicking little creatures, murmured to her husband who shambled alongside, ‘She’ll be about due by now I should think.’

Not needing to ask who
she
was, Redmond tilted his delicate face and breathed a sigh of regret over the rift. ‘Aye…’

‘It’ll be difficult for her, giving birth without her mother there.’ Over the months, Aggie had seen her daughter-in-law occasionally, noted the progressive increase of her girth as they passed without speaking in the street, and at such points had asked herself: wasn’t it easy for her to condemn the Ibbetsons, but was she not behaving in exactly the same manner by cutting off her son? But the answer was always no, because this feud was not of her doing, it was Marty who was avoiding her, not the other way round. Had she
seen him face to face she would have broken her silence, despite the hurt he had inflicted on her in his stubborn defence of his wife, just as she might have smiled at Etta had the latter deigned to look at her, but the other’s eyes were always averted as she crossed the road to avoid any unpleasantness. Still, she could voice pity for a girl approaching labour. ‘’Tis a lonely time at best.’

Redmond sensed that his wife might be weakening and, detesting this current state of affairs, sought to take advantage by confirming, ‘It’ll certainly be a fierce struggle for them both. I wonder how himself has been.’

‘Probably disappeared down the cracks in the pavement, the way she neglects him,’ said Aggie, intransigent again. ‘But that’s of his own making. God help that poor child of his. I mean, it will be our grandchild after all. I don’t like to think of it born into hardship, nor of Marty struggling…’

‘Should we call in on our way back, then, do you think?’ posed Redmond hopefully. He had tried to bring about a reconciliation at Christmas but Ag had had none of it.

This time, though, she paid him more heed. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t harm to see how the land lies…just you and me. Himself could take the nippers home.’ She referred now to Uncle Mal, who shuffled ahead with the children, occasionally stooping to wrench handfuls of spring flowers from beneath the hedgerows. Deliberating for a few seconds longer, she finally uttered, ‘Aye, maybe we should – but any of her lip and that’s it!’

Some twenty minutes later, upon reaching the deserted pens of the Cattle Market, they instructed Uncle Mal to continue home with the children, they themselves making a detour into the alleyway that led to their son’s abode.

Even before they were half a dozen paces along it they could hear Etta’s bellows and curses.

Red winced and stroked his bushy hair, his eyes wary. ‘Maybe it’s better I don’t…’ His comment tailed away as
his knees suddenly buckled and he fell to the ground, momentarily paralysed.

His wife sighed in quiet exasperation and bent to tend him, waiting for the couple of minutes it took him to recover, then propping him against a wall whilst she went into the yard, tapped at Marty’s door and waited.

Marty had never been so glad to see her. ‘Oh, thank God, Ma! I don’t know what’s happening up there but it can’t be right.’

Immediately past slights were forgiven. ‘Do you want me to –?’

‘Oh please, yes, yes!’ He dragged her in and almost bundled her up the stairs.

Rarely had Aggie heard so many oaths strung together as emerged from Etta’s mouth – where had a young lady learned such things? She was glad that it was the midwife who was subjected to it and not herself. What a fuss! But that was Etta through and through. She herself had bitten the sheets, twisted them into knots, anything in order to avoid upsetting others, but Etta had no such reserve. Closing her eyes against yet another obscenity, her step was tentative as she approached the bedroom. But once in there she saw what lay behind the commotion.

‘Push, woman, push! There where you feel my fingers!’

Aggie cringed – then was immediately furious. There was no delicacy in childbirth but the way that old sow was jabbing at Etta was downright inhuman.

‘What in God’s name are you doing to that poor girl?’ She surged forth now, taking the other by surprise.

‘I’m trying to deliver her if she’d heed!’ Mrs Dowd wheeled to complain.

‘Look at your nails, they’re filthy!’ Aggie was horrified. ‘Away with ye now, you unsanitary old creature!’

Pricked, the old midwife refused to budge. ‘I was hired fair and square!’

‘Well, your services are no longer required!’ Slender of
body, Aggie employed strength of character to drive the bigger woman away from the bed, watching her like a hawk whilst she packed her satchel, to much muttering and grumbling.