That Liverpool Girl (48 page)

‘You’re furious.’

She made no reply, turned and strode away. With her fingers crossed, she walked over to the opposite pavement and prayed that he would not make a scene. There was madness in him, and not a little desperation. She knew how powerful and confusing love could be, knew the strength of his feelings for her. It hadn’t been like that between her and Keith. Keith had tumbled clumsily into love, but she had eased her way towards him. She had chosen a good man, and had waited months to marry him.

The fool was kerb-crawling up Manor Road.

‘Do you have half an hour to spare, miss? Want to earn a few bob? My place isn’t too far away, and I’ve got some sugar.’

‘What are you after?’ she asked.

‘Just your body.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ Eileen climbed in next to her husband. ‘This baby is huge,’ she complained. ‘I think she’s going to turn up with a full suite of furniture and a gas mask.’

Keith’s mind was still focused on Bingley. ‘I watched you with him,’ he said. ‘He isn’t giving up, is he?’

‘No. He’s behind us.’

Keith sighed and looked in his rear-view mirror. He understood the desperate mind of Tom Bingley, but had their positions been reversed Keith would have walked away. Perhaps in his twenties he might have resorted to unusual methods, but he had grown up. Tom Bingley hadn’t; he was still a lad chasing pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. Dr Bingley’s childishness reminded Keith of Jay . . .

‘We’ll be gone from here soon, Keith. And I look like the side of a house, so I doubt he’ll pursue me.’
You carry beautifully
, he had said.

Keith stopped the car and waited until Tom had overtaken him. The fact that he was still in the picture while Eileen was temporarily misshapen carried ominous implications. It was becoming clear that the doctor’s interest went beyond the merely physical; he had fallen hook, line and waders for Eileen and was bent on reeling her in. ‘He loves you, and I can’t blame him.’

She shook her head. ‘He wants me.’

‘While you’re pregnant? While you’re huge with our baby? Sweetheart, he’s crazy about you, and he’s out of control. He may think he’s clever, and he may actually be clever, but he’s as capable as the next man of losing his page in the book. If he slips off the edge of reason, forty miles is no distance for a madman. I’m going to talk to his wife.’

‘No.’

‘But Eileen—’

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘She’s been through enough. If anyone talks to her, it will be me. She’s been a frightened, lonely girl for as long as she can remember. Men are not her favourite people, so leave her alone.’ Eileen took her husband’s hand. ‘Do you mind if we baptize this one Francesca Helen? We’d use the Helen, but the fancy first name would be for Miss Morrison.’

It was ideal, and he told her so. Her mother was Helen, while his had been Ellen. ‘But we don’t want another Nellie,’ he insisted. ‘One’s enough.’

She agreed. The thought of another Nellie Kennedy caroming her way through life was exhausting. In truth, Eileen was exhausted anyway. Had she walked too far in pursuit of salmon? Had she . . . ‘Keith, we need to get home. Something’s wrong with me.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t feel well.’

Immediately, he set the car in motion. Should he drive quickly or slowly? Neither seemed right, so he went along at thirty. But he didn’t take her home; instead, he drove to Dr Ryan’s surgery. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered before dashing into the building. If Tom bloody Bingley’s mithering had damaged Eileen, the man would be dead in an hour or two. She had to be all right. She mattered more than any baby.

Pandemonium followed. A man who had been waiting to see the doctor about an ingrowing toenail forgot his discomfort and helped Keith carry Eileen through to the surgery, where she was placed on an examination trolley. Keith stayed at the top end and held his wife’s hand while Dr Ryan dealt with the lower department. ‘The plug’s out,’ she announced.

‘What plug?’ the patient demanded.

Dr Ryan smiled at her. ‘This is pregnancy number five, and you don’t know about plugs?’

‘Only in sinks and baths,’ Eileen’s replied. ‘Can’t you shove it back in?’

‘Same principle as sinks and baths, but no, I can’t just shove it back. A plug of mucus wedges in the neck of the womb to protect the pregnancy. If it comes out, premature labour is a distinct possibility. Now, listen to me, Eileen. You aren’t going to like this, but you sure as hell are going to follow my instructions. You will not walk at all. You will take wheat germ and vitamin C. The vitamin C will be in bottles of orange juice – like the ones we give to children, government issue.’

‘Bugger,’ said Eileen quietly. ‘What about going to the lav?’

‘Bedpan.’

‘Shit.’

‘Exactly,’ said the seasoned medic. ‘Keith has to nurse you. You are about twenty-seven weeks. The closer we can get to forty, the better. For meals, you may sit up. Apart from that, you lie flat with your feet raised higher than your head.’

‘How exciting. And how nice for a man who still thinks I’m a goddess. He’ll have to wipe my backside.’

The doctor continued seamlessly. ‘A nurse will come twice a day. You may develop pressure sores on your heels and on your rear, so Keith and the nurse will rub the areas with surgical spirit several times a day. If you get sores, stop the spirit and ask the nurse for cream. Do not attempt to hold back faeces in order to avoid embarrassment. If you try to time bowel movements to coincide with the nurse’s visits, you will harm the baby. The orange juice will keep you regular.’

Eileen closed her eyes. In her opinion, if men had to go through this kind of rubbish, on top of big bellies, exhaustion and pain, the human race would die out in decades. ‘And when my legs seize up?’

‘They will be massaged and exercised gently on a daily basis.’

‘Whoopee.’

‘Don’t get excited,’ advised Elizabeth Ryan, sarcasm tinting the words. ‘We are going to save this baby. Mel needs a sister, and your lovely husband will enjoy being a daddy. So shut up and get on with it.’

The patient opened one eye. ‘It could be a boy.’

‘It’s a girl,’ the doctor replied. ‘Don’t ask how I know, I just do.’ She spoke to Keith. ‘Take no nonsense from her. If anything happens, call me night or day. If I’m not here, someone else will come to you. The main thing is to keep her still.’

‘She has a low boredom threshold, doc.’

‘I think we all know that. Oh, and the move to Bolton is not possible. I know it’s not ideal, but she must stay here in Crosby, in bed, until she has delivered safely.’

For Eileen, this last piece of information proved too much, and she burst into tears. ‘I’ll never get away from him,’ she sobbed. ‘And I’ll be a sitting – well, a lying-down duck when you’re at work and Mel’s at school. He won’t leave me alone. You saw him today. He was standing there again, telling me how much he loves me. I’m too tired for all that rubbish.’

Keith stroked his beloved’s hair and spoke to their doctor. ‘Bingley,’ he snapped.

‘I know. Miss Morrison told me.’

‘He’s just kept her standing on Moor Lane for about ten minutes. Eileen, I will not leave you except for shopping. I may even get someone to stay with you while I’m out for a short time. He can’t be allowed to win, love. We mustn’t be defeated by a man as low as that one. For my war work, I’ll join the ARP and be a warden in the evenings while Mel’s with you.’ He was terrified. He wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and lie with her until the baby was born. He also wanted to kick the living daylights out of a certain doctor who was hurting Eileen.

‘Leave Bingley to me,’ ordered Elizabeth Ryan.

Eileen’s tears dried. ‘What can you do? What can anyone do?’

Elizabeth’s face was grim. At this moment, she was not a doctor; she was a woman fighting for one of her own sex. The woman wanted to kick seven shades of shit out of Tom, but the doctor had to be in charge.

‘What can you do?’ Eileen asked again.

‘I can lose him his job.’ She picked up the phone and gave the operator a number. ‘Marie? Yes, yes, I’m fine. You? Good. That little makeshift ambulance the WVS has, does it have a stretcher? Oh, great. Mrs Greenhalgh is in danger of going into premature labour. I need your ambulance here and two or three big men round at Miss Morrison’s house. Yes. Yes. I want the furniture bringing downstairs again, and the cage round the bed. Thank you. That’s brilliant.’

Keith and Eileen breathed again. For a moment, they had expected Dr Ryan to tell Marie that her husband was out of order.

‘Don’t ask me any more questions about my . . . colleague. Sorry about your dining room, but you’ll have to store it upstairs.’ She glared at the supine patient. ‘You are staying downstairs because I don’t trust you. On the ground floor, you’ll be easier to watch.’

Eileen muttered something about handcuffs and the ill-treatment of innocent women. ‘Miss Morrison was a suffragette,’ she finished.

‘Shut up,’ Keith and the doctor ordered simultaneously.

Eileen shut up. There was a distinct absence of sympathy in the world these days. But she would save Keith’s baby, by heck, she would. He wanted a child, and he would have to work hard to look after her, so he deserved the best child ever.

After listening to the patient’s distended abdomen, Dr Ryan perched on the edge of Eileen’s temporary bed. ‘Right,’ she began.

‘What now? Haven’t you done enough?’

‘Well, there’s just one more thing.’

‘Fire away. And I want a new wireless, one less crackly than the antique we have. And it comes in the cage with me.’

The medic took Eileen’s hand in hers. ‘It’s doubly important that you do everything I’ve told you, Eileen. There are two heartbeats.’

The patient blinked stupidly. ‘Two?’ She forced herself to relax before addressing her beloved. ‘You never do anything by halves, do you? Two puddings, two biscuits, two caramels, two babies. No wonder I look nine months gone already.’ She grinned broadly. ‘I don’t half love you, sweetheart. But you should come with a hazard warning, like dynamite.’

He dropped into a chair. ‘I didn’t know, did I? I didn’t capture two of the buggers and tell them to find an egg each.’

Elizabeth Ryan laughed. ‘They could be identical. If they are, that’s just one little tadpole and one tiny egg. If fault’s the right word, it could be Eileen’s body that went for a walk on the wild side. I’m still putting my bet on the bigger one being a girl.’ She liked these people. They were honest, positive and funny. ‘Eileen, do you have any savings? Sorry to ask, but . . .’

‘We have money,’ Keith said.

‘Then I want you to allow a Mr Barr into your cage. He is
the
man, a consultant, so his fee will be three or four times mine. I’d like him to keep an eye on you and to be there for the birth in Parkside. It’s run by Augustinian nuns, so it isn’t expensive. You may need a Caesarean section.’

The chin came up. Even lying down, Eileen managed to demonstrate determination. ‘There’s enough bars in that bloody cage without bringing another Barr in. But whatever it takes, Dr Ryan, we save both of these kiddies. Now, where’s that bloody ambulance?’

Nellie was going spare. Her one and only, her precious daughter, was having twins and she’d lost her plug. Nellie, who had been unaware of the existence of uterine plugs, was crying at Hilda Pickavance’s kitchen table. ‘Stands to reason. Pull the plug out of a sink and everything drains away. There’s no chain with a womb plug, no saying “whoops” and shoving it back in and saving what you can. And she’s no good at lying down and keeping still. I’m scared, Hilda. She needs me. And I’m stuck here with the three bloody musketeers.’

‘Then go to her, but go alone. I fear Mrs Openshaw might be a little too much for Eileen given current circumstances.’

Nellie dried her eyes. ‘A big too much, you mean. Oh, I don’t know what to do. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Life settles down, so you get Germans dropping in for tea, an unexploded bomb being exploded down the road, a genius artist in the family, Jay and his diabetes – what next? Creatures from another planet, a plague of frogs?’

Hilda was tired of telling her friend that Willows would not fall down without her. The schoolchildren had settled well, so Nellie’s brand of punishment was seldom required, and Eileen’s three tearaways had turned out brilliantly. But Nellie, whose attitude often embraced a healthy level of cynicism, continued to eye her grandsons with suspicion. They had been thieves, vagabonds and a threat to sanity, and she was waiting for them to kick off again. Leopards didn’t change their spots, and vagabonds usually reverted to type.

‘Nellie?’

‘What?’

‘Jay and Neil are nearby. It’s my belief that the boys are so well settled that you needn’t worry. But if you insist on getting in a state, just remember that we have people here who will help. Go to her, I beg you. Phil, Rob and Bertie are evacuees, and most evacuees don’t have family with them. She needs you. Let me phone Keith. If he sets out now, you’ll be back in Crosby just before dark. Go on. Pack your things.’

‘But—’

‘I mean it, Nellie. If anything happens to Eileen or her babies, you’ll never forgive yourself. I couldn’t live with you if you couldn’t live with yourself. Go.’