War Babies (31 page)

‘All right?’ Rachel asked, holding out the segment of orange.

Netta nodded her thanks and sat down, nibbling on it. ‘She said so. Oh, I can’t believe it might be all right.’ The tears flowed again. ‘Francis is so excited.’

Rachel smiled. It was quite hard to imagine pale, devout Francis Fitzpatrick getting excited about anything.

The nurse came and called big Ruby in. They watched her haul herself off the chair and go along obediently, rocking from foot to foot.

‘God now, she’s a wreck,’ Netta said. ‘I’d wait for you, Rach –’ she picked up her cloth bag – ‘but I said I’d get back and give Mammy
a hand.’

‘Never mind,’ Rachel said. ‘See you soon, Netta. Pop in if you can. Look after yourself.’

‘Oh – I will!’ She laughed and gave a wave. ‘Bye now.’ Rachel turned back to the ring of children, where Melanie was now happily playing with Rita and Shirley
Sutton who were acting as if she was their little doll. For a second she caught Irene watching her. Irene was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, in that grey, old-fashioned frock of hers.
There was a strange expression on her face as if she was trying to work something out. When she saw Rachel looking she turned her mouth down in the contemptuous way she often did, as if to say she
was better than all of them, and turned away.

Rachel looked at her. She didn’t really like Irene all that much; she was such a moody so-and-so. But she, Irene and Netta all lived in the same street. Their babies were all due within a
few days of each other and Melly seemed to be fast making friends with Irene’s girls, poor little mites. It looked as if they were all going to be stuck with each other, whether they liked it
or not.

September 1943

Two weeks later, Rachel was walking back from the shops on a hot, sticky day. Everything smelt stronger to her: whiffs of bins from the back courts, of horse muck and
metallic factory smells. Fat green flies buzzed about, settling on the vilest things. And progress was slow, leading Melanie by one hand and carrying a bag of shopping in the other. She felt heavy
and sluggish and in low spirits. A sharp pain niggled somewhere deep in her pelvis. It seemed an age since she had heard from Danny. Where was he? Why had he not written? But perhaps he had. There
was no knowing when letters would arrive. Sometimes it was many weeks before she heard from him. At night she often lay in bed full of dark thoughts and fears that something terrible had happened,
awful pictures of Danny injured, or worse, filling her mind, though she managed to banish them in the daylight.

Pausing for a moment as her daughter dawdled, she winced as the muscles of her belly tightened, like a cramp.

‘Come
on
, Melly, walk a bit faster,’ she urged wearily. ‘Shall we sing “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and you walk along to that?’

She looked down at the child, who was idly sucking one finger, and saw her eyes widen in surprise at something along the street. Rachel looked up to see a tiny, bird-like figure tearing along in
her direction, dodging the other people in the street, apparently blind to everything. Rachel felt a surge of dread. Was something wrong with Netta?

‘Mrs O’Shaughnessy!’ she called to her.

‘Oh – it’s you, darlin’!’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy did not stop. ‘It’s our Netta – I’m going for the doctor.’

‘Has it started?’

Mrs O’Shaughnessy was moving past her now but she turned and scrambled backwards for a moment. ‘She’s after having her waters go – and there’s only our Eamonn there
and him not right in his wits . . . And Mrs Brown . . .’

‘Shall I go and be with her?’ Rachel called.

Mrs O’Shaughnessy stopped for a moment, her watery blue eyes widening. ‘Oh, would you, darlin’? Yes, you go to her – God bless you!’ And off she scurried.

Rachel scooped Melanie up into her arms, the shopping bag dangling, and lumbered along the street as fast as she could to the entry into the O’Shaughnessys’ yard. A woman, outside
mangling her washing, called out to Rachel as she hurried along but Rachel ignored her and ran into the house. Even as she came in through the front door she could hear sounds of pain.

In the downstairs room she found Netta half-slumped over the table, gasping. She was barefoot, again dressed in her green frock. Her thin hair was tied back and her face was pink and damp with
sweat. Eamonn, seventeen and the youngest boy of the family, was sitting by the unlit range, wide-eyed and bewildered. Mrs Brown, a kindly, thin-faced lady of about fifty, still in her pinner with
a pink scarf on, was standing behind Netta, making encouraging noises.

‘That’s it, bab – oh yes, that’s it!’ she said, in between frantically chewing at the ends of her fingers and not seeming to know what else to do. Rachel saw that
there were already pans of water heating on the stove.

Rachel almost dropped Melanie and the shopping on the floor. ‘Netta!’ she said as the wave of pain seemed to pass by. ‘It’s me – Rach.’

Netta looked round and grabbed Rachel’s arm, her eyes full of fear.

‘Rachel! Oh my God, it’s started. Oh, I’m so scared . . . Something’s going to go wrong. I’m never going to have a healthy child, I just know it. God doesn’t
want me to – He must be punishing me for something.’

‘Ooh, it’s no good talking like that, bab,’ Mrs Brown said. She seemed very flustered and uncomfortable. Rachel saw her eyeing up Mrs O’Shaughnessy’s Catholic
statues and the sacred heart on the mantelpiece. ‘I’ve put some more water on to boil,’ she added, to no one in particular.

Rachel put her arm around Netta’s back, feeling the hot moistness of her. ‘It’s all right – your mom’s gone for the doctor. She’ll be back in a minute. Just
hang on, Netta, all right? You’re doing everything you’re supposed to do.’

Netta was beginning to pant and another pain seized her. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, here it comes again!’ As she emerged from it she wailed, ‘There’s something wrong with it.
It’s going to die, I know it is!’

Mrs Brown kept tutting helplessly and saying things like, ‘No need to keep on like that.’ Rachel caught sight of Melanie, crouched as far away as she could get from Eamonn, who said
not a word, looking terrified.

‘Go out in the yard and play, Melly,’ she ordered her. ‘Wait for me there – I won’t be long.’

Melanie scampered outside with relief, away from all these alarming sights.

‘You’re all right,’ Rachel kept saying to Netta. ‘Just breathe nice and deep and your mom’ll be back soon,’ while the weight in her own body pulled on her and
the hard jabbing pain deep inside her grew worse. She longed to sit down.

It felt like an eternity before Mrs O’Shaughnessy came hurtling back across the yard and burst into the house.

‘The doctor’s called an ambulance!’ she announced. Mrs Brown gasped, which Rachel did not think was very helpful. ‘He said you should have this one in the
hospital.’

Netta dissolved into sobs. ‘I told you!’ she cried. ‘There’s something wrong. I’m going to lose this one as well and what’ll I tell Francis? It’ll break
his heart . . .’ She was so sure of it, so grief stricken, that Rachel found herself in tears as well, as if the worst was already happening. Soon, two orderlies appeared across the yard
carrying a stretcher and Netta screamed and clung to the table, a look of utter terror on her face.

‘No! Mammy – don’t let them take me away!’

‘Come on now, Netta, they’re here to help you,’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy said. ‘To help the baby and make sure it’s all right.’ She didn’t seem too sure
though and even as the two ambulance people, one man and one woman, came and spoke gently to Netta, Rachel felt very upset for her. Hospitals seemed frightening places to her.

‘Wait!’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy cried, running to the stairs. ‘Let me get her things.’

Once on the stretcher Netta lay quiet, suddenly submissive. Rachel went and took her hand and squeezed it. ‘See you as soon as I can.’ She forced her lips into a smile.

But it was a terrible feeling seeing Netta carried away, even if it was meant to be for the best.

‘Holy Mother,’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy said in desperate tones, sinking onto a chair. ‘For pity’s sake, let her be all right this time.’

All that day after she got home, Rachel fretted about Netta, wondering what was happening. She told Gladys and Dolly what had happened and they all wondered and hoped for
Netta, of whom they had all grown fond. Rachel could not settle to anything.

‘It made me feel quite queer seeing her,’ Rachel said as they sat around the table. ‘I keep thinking mine’s starting – sort of in sympathy, like!’ Then she
giggled. ‘You should’ve seen that Mrs Brown’s face. She looked as if she’d walked into – I don’t know what – a witch’s den! What with all
Netta’s mom’s statues and that.’

Gladys cleared her throat. ‘It’s not everyone holds with all that sort of thing,’ she said stiffly. She held out a little white bag. ‘Anyone for a mint?’ She put
her head on one side. ‘You all right?’ A pain had clenched through Rachel’s belly and she was gasping. ‘You look flushed. You’re not coming on as well, are
you?’

‘I don’t think so – it’s a bit early,’ Rachel breathed, as the wave receded. ‘I overdid it today though – carrying Melly and everything.’

By the small hours the pains were coming hard and regular, and there was no mistaking the fact that her own labour had begun. Rachel tossed and turned in bed as the pains
became so intense she had to make a huge effort not to scream. The room was very dark and she did not like it, being lost and alone with the contractions, unable to see anything. It was frightening
and miserable. Between one pain and another she got up and lit the stub of a candle and that made her feel a little bit better. She knew Melanie would not wake. The child slept very soundly once
she was off to sleep on the other side of the bed.

She knew she could stand it for a while. After all, she had done this before. But eventually the pain reached such a peak that she could not help crying out, trying to muffle her mouth with the
bedclothes. Despite herself, she let out a thin, high shriek and after a few moments she heard Gladys moving about. A wavering light appeared at the bottom of the attic stairs.

‘Rach?’ Gladys’s voice came up to her. ‘What’s going on – are you having it?’

‘Yes – get help, Auntie,’ Rachel cried. ‘It’s coming. I must’ve set it off, carting Melly about like that . . .’

‘Right.’ Gladys came upstairs and put her candle down. ‘Let’s get this one out of the way – I’ll put her in my bed.’ She disappeared with a soundly
sleeping Melanie in her arms. It crossed Rachel’s mind that she had never seen the room where Melanie was about to be put to bed again. Shortly Gladys came back up.

‘I’ve got Ernie to run for the midwife,’ she said. Ernie Morrison, the eldest boy, was now fourteen and just out at work. ‘I told him to stay with her and bring her
– they can never find these houses.’

In the candlelit room, Rachel sank into herself, barely aware of anything else that was going on around her. Time passed, during which she was dimly aware of Gladys organizing things, shifting
her over to lay newspaper on the bed, coming up and down the stairs. But the pains were getting closer and the crushing clench of it became her whole awareness. She crouched forward, face turned
sideways on the pillow, and she dozed during the short lulls between each contraction and the next, wishing she could just go to sleep and then wake and it would all be over. She felt tired to her
bones, and the idea of trying to birth a baby was utterly exhausting.

‘You all right, Rach?’ Gladys’s voice came to her from time to time. She could hear her trying to sound in command, when she was nervous and wishing the midwife would get
here.

‘Ummm,’ she managed in reply. And, as the pain grew again, ‘I want Danny . . .’ In her mind she fixed an image of his face, smiling at her, urging her on.

Then there was someone else in the room – sounds of activity. ‘Well, hello – here we are again!’ she heard. ‘Now you look as if you’re doing very
well.’

With pleasure she recognized the voice. Looking up, she saw the dark curly hair and competent figure of Nurse Biggins, the same young midwife who had delivered Melly.

‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?’ she heard her say. ‘Well, you’re a nice healthy young thing. It was a little lady we delivered last time, wasn’t
it?’

‘She’s asleep downstairs,’ Gladys said. ‘Bonny little thing she is.’

‘Well, she’s got a nice healthy-looking mother.’ In a lull between the pains, she added, ‘I’ll examine you now, Rachel, while we have the chance. You’re an
old hand at this, aren’t you, young lady? Could you just roll over for me?’

Rachel smiled vaguely. It was nice to be thought a woman of the world. She endured the examination and the midwife said, ‘Very good – you’re more than halfway there
already.’

And then everything stopped. Rachel did not notice at first. She sank into a doze, waking with a start and no idea how long she had been asleep. She saw Gladys across the room and the midwife
who was sitting beside her, sipping from a cup.

‘Are we off again?’ she said, putting the cup down in an expectant way. ‘It’s been a while since the last one.’

‘No,’ Rachel said muzzily. ‘How long’ve I been asleep?’

The midwife glanced at the little watch pinned to her uniform. ‘About ten minutes.’ She frowned, then brightened. ‘I expect there’ll be another one along in a minute.
You’ve probably reached the “rest and be thankful” stage. It happens, dear. I should make the most of it while you can. The pains will be back sure enough.’

Reassured, Rachel dozed. Everything went very quiet. The she became aware of voices, low and urgent. She heard the word ‘doctor’ more than once.

‘What’s the matter?’ She was wide awake suddenly, gripped by panic at the hushed, worried tones.

‘It’s all right, dear.’ The midwife hurried across to her. ‘We were just wondering if you needed helping along a little bit. I tell you what –’ She looked
across at Gladys. ‘We’ll try something first. That baby seems to be having a bit of a rest and we need to get him moving again.’

Though she spoke cheerfully, Rachel could hear a tremor in her voice. She sat up, her hair tumbling about her face. The bedclothes felt like hot ropes around her legs and she kicked them off.
‘There’s something wrong. Don’t hide things from me!’