The Girls They Left Behind (40 page)

Who could he ask? He racked his brains. If only Freda wasn’t laid up with flu, he would have fetched her. Jess Budd or her sister Annie were the next who came to mind, but he’d seen them going out earlier on. They’d probably be stuck now in someone’s shelter. What about Peggy Shaw? No, she’d have gone to the First Aid post, and her daughter Gladys with her.

There must be other neighbours who’d help. But Mrs Minns who lived next door to Kathy was old and frail, and anyway she’d never had any babies. Vi Redding from number 12 had had plenty of kids but she wasn’t all that bright. And a lot of the others had started ‘trekking’ every night, going over the hill to Denmead or Cowplain to escape the bombs.

The snarl of approaching planes could be heard quite clearly now. He stood irresolute for a moment, and then caught a glimpse of light, flickering momentarily from a front door. Ethel Glaister.

‘Here!’ he shouted. ‘Mrs Glaister! I want you.’

The light disappeared. He heard the click of the door and ran down the pavement. There was no sign of life now in the house and he guessed that she was probably going down to the shelter in the back garden. He lifted his fist and pounded on the door, found the letter-box and shouted through it.

‘Mrs Glaister! Ethel! Open the door.’

The blackout curtain hung heavily against the letter box.

He tried to thrust it aside with his hand. The planes were almost overhead.

‘Ethel! It’s Tommy Vickers. There’s an emergency - for God’s sake, open the door.’

‘Go away,’ a voice called from inside. ‘We’re going down the shelter.’

‘No - open up Ethel, please!’

‘There’s a raid on ‘

‘I know that, for crying out loud!’ He tried to force the exasperation from his voice. Ethel Glaister was too touchy to offend now. ‘Look, I need your help. Open the door a minute.’

There was a pause, then he heard the click of a light being switched off and the door opened slightly. He could see the pale oval of Ethel’s face peering out.

‘What is it? Has someone been bombed?’

‘No, it’s’

‘If you got me out here,’ she said, beginning to sound haughty, ‘just so you could tell me off for showing a light for about half a second ‘

‘It’s nothing to do with that.’ He was beginning to feel desperate. ‘I just want to ask your help.’

‘Help?’ Her voice was suspicious. ‘What sort of help?’

‘It’s young Mrs Simmons. The woman who got bombed out - lives in number 16, October ‘

‘I know who she is. What’s the matter with her?’

Her tone wasn’t encouraging but Tommy plunged on.

‘She’s having a baby ‘

‘Well, anyone can see that, too. What’s it got to do with me?’

‘She’s over there all by herself.’ The sky was filled now with the roar of enemy aircraft. ‘I’m worried about her -I think the baby might be on its way.’ His words were drowned by the whistle of a bomb and the crash of its explosion. He ducked involuntarily. The first explosion was always the worst - after that, you were expecting it. ‘I said, I think the baby ‘

Ethel had jumped back inside the house. She looked up nervously at the sky and said, ‘I’m going down the shelter. I ought to have been there already. You’ll get us all killed, Tommy Vickers, standing here gossiping when there’s a raid on.’

‘I’m not gossiping. I’m worried about young Mrs Simmons.

She needs someone with her.’ There was another explosion somewhere in the city, and another. ‘She shouldn’t be there on her own ‘

‘Look,’ Ethel Glaister said sharply, ‘we’re all having to manage on our own. All us women. Isn’t my George away, in the Army? Ask someone who’s got her husband at home, someone like Jess Budd next door or Peggy Shaw. I’ve got my own children to think of. I can’t go out gallivanting about having tea with the neighbours in the middle of an air-raid.’

Another crump sounded, nearer at hand this time. ‘Anyway, Kathy Simmons wouldn’t want me popping over to pass the time of day, as good as turned me out last time, she did, when I tried to be friendly. And now I’m going down our shelter, where I ought to have been ten minutes ago.’

She drew back and slammed the door in Tommy’s face. He stared at it for a moment, feeling helpless. Then he thrust his hand through the letter-box again and put his mouth close against it.

‘Ethel, she needs your help. She’s having her baby, she might be having it this very minute. Ethel, she could die over there, with no one who knows what to do …’

But there was no reply. And as the bombs fell thick and fast all over Portsmouth, Tommy Vickers knew that there was only one thing he could do.

‘My God!’

Kathy scarcely heard Tommy’s voice as he ducked back into the shelter, hardly knew he was there, only knew that suddenly a hand was in hers and she was clutching it with all the desperation of a woman drowning and almost beyond help. He slipped his arm under her shoulders and held her hard against him, sharing the anguish with her, waiting until it receded. At the same time, he reached out his other arm and the two frightened children slid across their bed and pressed themselves against the warmth of his body.

‘Is Mummy dying?’ Stella asked in a small voice as Kathy relaxed again and lay panting, her eyes closed, in the circle of his arm.

‘No, of course she isn’t. She’s just having a baby. You knew you were going to have a baby brother or sister, didn’t you?’

‘Brother,’ Muriel stated firmly.

‘Well, we’ll soon see. It’s going to be born tonight. That’s what’s happening now, see, it’s been living in your mum’s tummy all this time and now it’s coming out, that’s all.’

‘But it’s hurting her,’ Muriel whispered as Kathy began to tense again. ‘Why is it hurting her so much?’

‘It just does sometimes.’ Tommy sought for words to explain but Kathy was groaning again, and her body was thrashing about on the bed. He caught her against him, letting her clutch his hands until he feared she would break all his fingers, and rode the storm with her. His mind echoed the little girl’s words. Why was it hurting so much? Why did it have to be like this?

‘Does the baby have to make a hole to come out of?’ Stella looked fearfully at her mother’s body as if expecting it to rip like a paper bag. ‘Is that what it’s doing now?’

‘No, there’s a place for it come out.’ He looked doubtfully at the swollen body. Should he get some of her clothes off?

Surely it would be easier for her. If only there were another woman here. Surely one of the neighbours would help, if he could only let them know they were needed … Even that bitch Ethel Glaister… He glanced towards the doorway, then swore under his breath and hesitated. Kathy was resting again, but the contractions were coming too quickly for him to go for help. And he couldn’t send the children out into the bomb-spattered streets, not even to hop over the fence to next-door’s shelter. No, he would have to stay and just do the best he could.

Hot water. Wasn’t that what was needed, lots of hot water?

He’d never known exactly why. Perhaps it was just to make tea. He looked at the teapot, covered with cushions to keep it hot. Well, at least Kathy could have a drink when she needed it.

Kathy’s body bucked and twisted in his arms. He held her tightly, feeling the waves of pain shudder through her body.

How long would it go on like this? How long could she stand it like this?

‘Listen, love,’ he said when the contraction had passed, leaving her weak and trembling against him. ‘I think we ought to get some of your clothes off. Don’t worry -I won’t look at you. But the baby’s got to have room.’

‘It’s all right. I don’t care what you do.’ She managed a twisted grin. ‘There’s no modesty when you have a baby, Mr Vickers. Just - don’t go away.’ Her face contorted and she grabbed his hand again and screamed through gritted teeth.

‘Oh God! Oh God, oh God, oh God!’

The two girls began to cry. ‘Mummy, Mummy. It’s hurting her, she’s going to die, oh Mummy, Mummy, Mummy …’

‘It’s all right,’ Tommy panted, himself far from sure. ‘It’ll be over soon and you’ll have a lovely brother. Or sister.’ It didn’t matter a row of buttons which it was, he thought, so long as it didn’t take too long. But Freda had been over eighteen hours in labour with their Eunice. Had it been like this all through every one of those eighteen hours? No wonder she’d never wanted any more.

What were you supposed to do? Was it enough just to hold her, or was there something else he ought to be doing? He pulled the blanket down and undid the laces on Kathy’s maternity skirt. It fell away, a big rectangle of material. If he could get it out from underneath her, he could lay it over her body. She had knickers on too, huge bloomers with elasticated legs. Blimey, he thought, they’re like a ruddy barrage balloon. He tried to ease them down but they were trapped beneath her heavy body. They were soaking wet and sticking to her skin.

‘Kathy, you’ll have to help me. We’ve got to get your knickers off.’ I hope to God nobody’s outside listening, he thought with grim humour. Not that anyone would hear anything, over the cacophony that was going on out there, with planes still droning overhead, ack-ack guns firing and bombs whistling and crashing to the ground. What a time to be having a bloody baby!

‘I can’t - oh God, no. AW Her head twisted in useless rebuttal. She clutched his hands, her nails digging into his skin. ‘It wasn’t like this with the other two. Oh God, Mr Vickers, it’s killing me!’

‘It’s not. It’s not.’ He tried to keep the fear from his voice.

Suppose it was killing her? Suppose she died here in the shelter, in his arms, in front of her two little girls? ‘It’s going to be all right, Kathy. Your baby’s being born and everything’s all right. Just don’t panic’ And you’re a fine one to talk, Tommy Vickers, he thought. You’re on the verge of panic yourself. What in hell’s name should I do?

Between them, and between the contractions, they managed to get her knickers off. Stella helped, once he’d told her that this was where the baby would come out. She looked at him with some doubt at first, but her mother nodded weakly and said, ‘It’s right, Stell. You do what Mr Vickers tells you,’

and she put her small hands to the waist of the garment and tugged when Kathy, panting hard, lifted her body an inch or two to allow it to be pulled down.

‘That’s better.’ Tommy felt relieved. He pulled the blanket quickly back over the distorted body. If only it wasn’t so cold down here. But it was December and the shelter was half underground and damp. Not that Kathy seemed to feel it.

She was streaming with sweat.

The labour went on, and overhead the roar of planes and the reverberations of the bombs continued in accompaniment.

I ought to be out there doing my rounds, Tommy thought. I ought to be making sure everyone’s in shelter and not showing any lights, and I ought to be looking out for fires and parachutes and giving a hand wherever it’s needed. But that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it? You can’t say it’s not needed here. If only I knew what to do.

‘Kathy, love,’ he said urgently, ‘you’re going to have to help me. Tell me what I should be doing. I mean, I’ve never done this before. You’ve had babies, you must know …’

‘Just stay here. Don’t go away - for Christ’s sake, don’t go away.’ She was clutching him again. The contractions were coming almost in one long wave now, wrenching at her body, twisting her to and fro. Her heavings had tossed off the blankets and he could see the rippling of the muscles, actually see the pain that threatened to split her in half. Bloody hell, he thought, if this is what women go through it’s a wonder any of them ever has more than one kid. But then he remembered his Freda saying that you forgot, somehow, once it was all over. You’d need to, he thought.

The shape of Kathy’s body had changed. The bulge was much lower now, right down to her thighs. She was lying with her legs splayed and he could see a gaping black cavern between them, with red lips stretched far apart in a parody of a grin. And just inside the cavern, just visible, something else.

Something smooth and dark that approached the mouth of the cavern and then receded, and then, as Kathy gave a shout of pain and her whole body contorted, came almost to the entrance and almost, almost, pushed its way out.

‘The baby!’ he shouted in sudden realisation. ‘Kathy, it’s the baby! I can see it. Look - Stella, Muriel, look - there’s the baby, it’s almost born.’

As the contraction passed, it slithered back in again. Once again, Tommy was racked by doubt. Should he help? Put his fingers in and give a bit of a tug? Almost as soon as the thought had entered his mind, he dismissed it. He stared, fascinated, as the space widened and the head emerged a little more. He could see it pulsating. He could almost see its face. Surely it had got to be born now. He remembered the term Freda had used when talking about Eunice’s birth.

‘Bear down, Kathy! You’ve got to bear down.’ He gripped her hand and lifted his arm so that she could brace her feet against it. ‘That’s it. Now - next time it starts, bear down.

Hard. That’s it. That’s it. A bit more. A bit harder. Don’t stop now - give it all you’ve got. Now!’

‘I can’t!’ Kathy shrieked, kicking so hard that he almost toppled over as her body shot along the bed. ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!’

‘You can! You hovel’ The baby was thrusting from her body, virtually elbowing its way out, in a gush of blood and

water and God knew what else. Tommy grabbed it as it came, and almost dropped it on the cold earthen floor. It was covered in grey slime, as slippery as a fish squirming in his grasp, tiny arms and legs flailing, face screwed up and mouth wide open in a yell of fury. He held it in both hands, staring down at it. It’s born, he thought dazedly. It’s born. A baby. A new baby. No one’s ever seen it before, no one. I’m the very first…

Kathy had subsided. She lay suddenly flat and exhausted.

He looked at the baby and then at her. What did you do next? Weren’t you supposed to hold newborn babies up by their feet and smack their bottoms or something? He stared again at the slippery, grey little being who was glowering back at him. It seemed cruel. And what about the cord, which was quite different from anything he had ever imagined - a thick, purple rope leading from the baby’s navel back into Kathy’s body? What were you meant to do about that?