Sing as We Go (29 page)

Kathy closed her eyes and groaned inwardly. Had she been wrong to run away from those who would have helped her? Jemima and all the Robinson family? And Morry? Especially Morry? She even wondered if she should have given Tony another chance. Perhaps she should have waited until he’d come home on leave instead of rushing away in pique.

But no. If nothing else, she was an honest girl. She could no more force Tony into marriage than she could accept Morry’s proposal. And yet . . . Now she was being forced to give up her baby. She’d never even thought of such a thing. Yet now she had to face it.

Calmer now, she stood up. ‘I’ll think about it.’

The doctor was all smiles again, though now Kathy saw them as sinister. She gave him a brief nod and marched out of the room. She would talk to Lizzie and the other girls. Surely, she thought, there are others here who don’t want to give up their babies?

‘Of course we don’t
want
to,’ Lizzie said as three of the girls huddled together in the dormitory after lights out. ‘But what other choice do we have?’

‘How can we work and look after our babies?’ Pamela put in. She was near her time and every day her eyes became sadder and more haunted with the thought of what she must do. ‘I would if I could, believe me. I don’t want to give my baby away.’ Tears filled her eyes and Lizzie put her arm about her. ‘But your baby will go to a good home.’

‘You make it sound like a litter of puppies that goes to “a good home”,’ Kathy snapped.

Lizzie shrugged philosophically.

‘Why can’t we get a place together? Three or four of us and help each other.’ Kathy was clutching at preposterous ideas. ‘We could get work and one of us could look after the babies.’

‘I thought of that, but it’s been done,’ Pamela sighed, wiping her eyes.

‘And?’

‘It didn’t work. The locals accused the girls of keeping a brothel.’

Kathy stared at her, open-mouthed, to think that people could be so cruel. ‘You’d think in nineteen forty and in the middle of a war, folks would be a bit more understanding, wouldn’t you?’

‘You would,’ Lizzie said quietly. ‘But they’re not. We’re still “fallen women” in most folk’s eyes.’

‘So – is everyone here giving their babies up for adoption?’

No one spoke. No one denied it.

‘Lizzie?’

‘It’s the best for the child,’ Lizzie said, though her voice trembled.

‘But what about your baby’s father. Won’t he . . . ?’

Lizzie pursed her lips, trying to hold back the tears. She shook her head. ‘No. He didn’t want to know. He – he even said he didn’t know if the baby was his.’ Now her tears fell. ‘How could he say such a thing to me? He was my first boyfriend and he knew that.’

‘I was an absolute fool,’ Pamela murmured. ‘My baby’s father was married, but I was so head over heels in love with him . . .’ She needed to say no more. Each one of them knew what it was to fall in love, to be so sure that their lover felt the same. That nothing would ever come between them . . . Oh they’d heard it all before but they believed it would be so different for them. But it wasn’t. And now they found themselves here, brought together by a common bond, their only fault having loved too much.

‘And – and I take it your parents . . . ?’ Kathy began, but she got no further. There was wry laughter.

‘You must be joking,’ Pamela said. ‘My parents arranged for me to come here. I can only go home again when it’s all over and then only so long as it’s without the baby.’

‘But it’s their grandchild. How can they . . . ?’

‘Oh they can. Very easily, it seems,’ Pamela said.

‘My parents just turned me out,’ Lizzie said dolefully. ‘I’d nowhere else to go except a place like this. A friend of mine whose sister had a baby out of wedlock told me about Willow House.’

Two other girls told their similar, sorry, tales and then all eyes turned to Kathy.

‘I was almost married,’ she said bitterly. ‘Five minutes more and I would have been.’ And she went on to tell them the details of that chaotic day.

‘That’s awful, but couldn’t you have waited till he came on leave again? It doesn’t sound as if he’s deserted you. Just – just circumstances,’ Lizzie said logically.

‘I know,’ Kathy sighed. ‘Maybe I’ve been a bit hasty. I see that now. But I still don’t think there’s much hope. He’s a mother’s boy and that’s never going to change.’

‘Does he know? About the baby?’

‘No,’ Kathy said firmly. ‘And he’s not going to. Not from me and no one knows where I am. I – wanted to handle it myself, but – but I didn’t realize it involved giving up my baby.’ She turned to Lizzie and said softly, ‘And I’m not going to. Once I’ve had it, I’m out of here and taking my baby with me. At least I do have a place to go back to. Someone I lived with in – in the city. She’ll stand by me. I know she will.’

The girls all glanced at each other. ‘You’re lucky then,’ Pamela said. ‘Good luck to you.’

They crept back to their beds and Kathy lay staring into the darkness and planning how she could escape from this place that was like a prison.

Twenty-Eight

Pamela gave birth to a baby girl. She refused to look at it or hold it and the child was handed over to eager parents at a week old. The next day, Pamela said her goodbyes and returned home. Several other girls gave birth and stayed for about six weeks, caring for their child, feeding it, dressing it and bathing it.

When the day came that they too had to part with their babies, they were heartbroken.

‘I’ll never see her again,’ a young girl called Rachel sobbed on Kathy’s shoulder. ‘I’ll never see her smile or nurse her when she’s teething. I won’t be there when she starts to walk. And it won’t be me she learns to call “Mummy”.’

Kathy held her close and stroked her hair, but she could think of nothing to say to comfort the girl. There was nothing she could say.

And then it was Lizzie’s turn.

‘Stay with me,’ she begged Kathy. ‘Don’t leave me. I’m so frightened.’

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ Kathy tried to reassure her as the girl writhed on her bed in agony.

But there was plenty for Lizzie to be afraid of. She endured three days in labour to be delivered in the end of a stillborn child. A week later, distraught and weakened, Lizzie succumbed to an infection and followed her child to the pauper’s grave in the nearest churchyard.

On the morning of the funeral, Kathy sat by the window looking down the road towards the church. She had begged and pleaded to be allowed to attend her friend’s funeral but Matron was adamant in her refusal. ‘You cannot appear in public in your condition,’ she was told harshly, making her feel even more ashamed.

Now Kathy had no one left to whisper with. No new girls had come into the home since she had arrived, and with all those that had gone recently, there were only a handful left. She tried to make friends with one or two but they were withdrawn and uncommunicative, lost in their own private world of sadness and shame.

Once more, Kathy felt completely alone.

Kathy felt the first pangs of labour one cold, blustery November morning. She was put in the labour room and left.

‘I’ll be back soon. You’ve a long way to go yet.’

There was no one to sit with her, no one to comfort her. When the pains grew stronger and closer together and Kathy cried out, the nurse put her head round the door and said, ‘You can stop making all that noise. It’ll get worse yet.’ And she disappeared.

Kathy sobbed and cried out again, but no one came. There was no one who cared. Anger flooded through her, and the next time the pain came in a huge, crescendo, she bit hard down and refused to cry out. Over the next twenty minutes she made no sound, and her silence brought the nurse in faster than had her cries.

The birth was long and exhausting. As the pain became unbearable and Kathy could no longer quell her cries, she was aware that Matron had entered the room.

With experienced, but ungentle, hands the two women positioned her to give birth and then barked orders at her. ‘Push down hard. Now pant – now push . . .’ until with one valiant effort that took the last ounce of her strength, Kathy felt a strange emptying feeling and heard a baby’s cry.

‘Oh – oh. What is it?’

No one answered. She tried to raise herself up to see, but weariness overwhelmed her and she fell back. She was aware of movement in the room and the cries of her child grew fainter.

‘Please . . .’ she begged, but then she remembered no more.

When she came round, she was back in her own bed in the ward. She felt battered and bruised. She tried to sit up, but pain seared through her and she gave a cry.

One of the young girls, Peggy, who had come in the week before, came to her bedside.

‘Can I get you anything? Would you like a drink of water?’

‘Please,’ Kathy croaked through parched lips.

Peggy raised her up and held a glass to her parched lips. Kathy drank gratefully.

As she lay back again, she asked, ‘My baby? Where’s my baby?’

The girl shrugged. ‘They’ve taken him away.’

‘A boy? It was a boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where’ve they taken him?’

The girl shrugged. ‘He’ll have gone to his new parents, I suppose.’

‘What? Already? They can’t do that. I haven’t even seen him. I haven’t given my permission. I haven’t even – even held him.’ Tears coursed down her face. ‘They should have let me hold him. I should have him with me for a few weeks. Why – why have they taken him?’

Peggy leant closer. ‘I heard Matron talking to one of the nurses, telling her not to let you have him. “She’s trouble, that one,” she said. “Doctor said she wants to keep him, but he’s got an ideal couple waiting. Keep her sedated for two days. When she comes round, he’ll be gone. And she won’t be able to find out where.” That’s what she said.’

‘Have I been asleep for two days?’

Peggy nodded. ‘They kept rousing you and giving you more pills or they stuck a needle in you.’

‘But how can they do that? I thought the rules were that mothers nursed the babies for five or six weeks.’ Kathy passed her hand over her clammy forehead. She was still feeling dizzy and sick. It must be all the sedatives they’d given her.

‘What rules?’ Peggy laughed wryly. ‘They make their own rules here, believe me. Matron – and the doctor. They can do whatever they like because they own this place between them. Didn’t you know? They’re brother and sister.’

No, she hadn’t known. And now she was beginning to doubt the integrity of this place. But she was too weak to do anything about it. Too exhausted even to get out of bed. Her strength had drained from her and even her spirit was defeated and broken.

Kathy turned her face to the wall and wept bitter, scalding tears.

*

When Kathy was strong enough, she dressed and walked down to the matron’s office.

She faced the woman across the desk. ‘I didn’t know that those papers you had me sign when I came in here were adoption papers. You never told me what they were.’

The matron smiled. ‘Now, sit down, my dear. You’ve been through a very difficult birth and you’re not feeling strong yet. We can let you stay another week but then you’ll have to leave.’

‘But my baby,’ Kathy felt tears of weakness flow down her face. ‘What have you done with my baby?’

‘He’s gone to a loving couple. He will have a wonderful home, my dear. Everything that you could never give him. Isn’t that the very best thing for him?’

‘Where’s he gone? Who’s taken him?’

‘I can’t possibly tell you that. It wouldn’t do.’

‘But what are they like, these people? Surely you can tell me something?’

‘It’s our rules that neither side know the names or anything about each other. Secrecy is best for all concerned. All we can do is assure you that the adoptive parents are respectable people and suitable to bring up your child as if he was their own. Now, dry your tears and concentrate on getting yourself fit and well. Then you can leave and get on with your life. But if you’ll take my advice, you won’t be so foolish enough to find yourself in here again.’

Kathy rose and left the room without another word. As she reached for the door handle, she caught sight of three wooden filing cabinets, each with four drawers, placed against the wall just inside the door of the matron’s office. On each drawer there were letters A–B, C–D and so on through the alphabet. Kathy didn’t pause in her movement towards the door and out of the room, but as she left, her heart was beating a little faster.

In those drawers were the details of the people who had taken her baby. She was sure of it.

Kathy told no one of her plan. If only Lizzie were still here, or even Pamela, she might have confided in one of them, but she didn’t feel as if she knew the girls that were left well enough to trust them. They all seemed downtrodden, with no spirit left in them. She waited impatiently for another two nights, until she felt stronger. Luckily, she was now in a room on her own, so when she thought the household would be asleep, she crept out of her room and down the stairs, stopping in alarm every time a tread creaked. It sounded so loud in the silence of the night.

She reached the door to the matron’s office and tried the door handle. To her relief, it wasn’t locked. Quietly, she slipped into the darkened room. She didn’t want to turn on a light, so she opened the curtains to let the bright moonlight shine in. Then she went to the cabinets. They were locked. She bit her lip and looked about her. Then she tiptoed to the desk and quietly opened the middle drawer. A bunch of various-sized keys lay there. She lifted it up, wincing as the keys jangled together. She paused and listened, holding her breath, but there was no sound of anyone coming to investigate.

She tried various keys in the topmost drawer, A–B. She was beginning to lose hope and her heart was beating faster, fearing that at any moment she would be discovered. But then, she argued, what more could they do to her? They had already robbed her of her baby. She worked on, trying every key in the bunch. The last key but one fitted and turned the lock. She pulled open the drawer, wincing as it squeaked loudly.