The fellow hesitated, then tiptoed about the bed. He knew the poor cow had been driven mad with pain because he’d heard her shrieking even above the din of the wireless. When things had quietened down overhead he’d guessed the worst was over. Then he’d spied the dragon barging down the hall, uniform crackling. As soon as she had disappeared into the front room with a bucket of stuff to burn he’d crept upstairs while the coast was clear.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Trudy Johnson burst into the back bedroom and glared at the intruder; childbirth was nothing to do with men, in her opinion. They might put the bun in the oven but should stay well out of the way at the business end of things. The midwife had been disposing of soiled wadding in the parlour fire while waiting for her patient to enter the final stage of labour. But she’d heard voices and speeded up the stairs to see what was going on.
‘I’ve every right to be here.’ John Gardiner sounded huffy. ‘She’s me daughter and that there’s me granddaughter.’ He pointed at the swaddled bundle at the foot of the bed. The infant was emitting mewling squeaks while punching feet and fists into her straitjacket. He almost smiled. The poor little mite was unwanted but she was a fighter. John moved to pick up the newborn but the midwife advanced on him threateningly, fists on starched hips. He backed away, muttering, his hands plunged into his pockets.
‘I think your daughter deserves some privacy, Mr Gardiner. I’ll let you know when she’s ready for a visit.’
Chastened, John trudged meekly onto the landing, then peeped around the bedroom door. ‘Put the kettle on, shall I? Bet you’d like a cuppa, now it’s all over, wouldn’t you, dear?’ He addressed the remark to his exhausted daughter but gave Nurse Johnson a wink when she raised an eyebrow at him.
‘I’d be obliged if you’d make yourself scarce till it is over. But you can put the kettle on. I need some more hot water. Leave a full pot outside the door for me, please.’
Trudy looked at her patient as the door closed. The girl was fidgeting on the protective rubber sheet, making it squeak. The afterbirth was about to be expelled. After that it would be time to set about tidying up the new mum; Trudy hoped having a wash and a brush through her hair might give the poor thing a boost.
Rosie Deane didn’t look more than nineteen and was as slender as a reed. She had battled to get the baby through her narrow hips and finally succeeded after a lengthy labour.
‘Here … have a cuddle … she’s fair like you …’ The midwife placed the baby against Rosie’s shoulder, hoping to distract the young woman from dwelling on her sore nether regions.
‘Take her away from me. I don’t want her.’ Rosie’s hands remained clenched beneath the sheets and she turned her face away from her firstborn.
‘’Course you do; just got a bit of the blues, haven’t you, love? Only natural after what you’ve been through. All new mums say never no more, then quickly forget about the rough side of it.’ Trudy knew that to be true, but not from personal experience. She had no children, but she’d delivered hundreds of babies over more than a decade in midwifery. Some of the women on her rounds in Shoreditch seemed to knock out a kid a year, even into their forties. Mrs Riley, Irish and no stranger to her old man’s fists, had borne fifteen children, twelve of them still alive, and eight of them still at home with her.
Trudy was about to say that the pelvis opened up more easily after a good stretching in a first labour in the hope of cheering up this new mum. Then she realised the remark would be insensitive. The girl’s father had told her that Rosie’s husband had been killed fighting overseas only months ago, so Trudy kept her lip buttoned. In time Rosie would probably remarry and go on to have a brood round her ankles. She was plainly an attractive girl, despite now looking limp and bedraggled after her ordeal.
‘You’ve got a wonderful part of your husband here to cherish.’ Trudy glanced at the child her patient was ignoring. She pushed lank fair hair from Rosie’s eyes so she could get a better view of her baby. ‘See, she’s got her eyes open and is looking at you. She knows you’re her mum all right …’
‘I said take her away from me.’ Rosie levered herself up on an elbow, grabbing at the child as though she might hurl her daughter to the newspaper-strewn floorboards. Instead she held the bundle out on rigidly extended arms. ‘Take her … give her away … do what you like with her …’ she sobbed, sinking down and turning her face into the pillow to dry her cheeks on the cotton.
‘Come on, love; don’t get tearful.’ Trudy placed the baby back by the bed’s wooden footboard then gave her hiccuping patient a brisk, soothing rub on the back. ‘Just a few minutes more and we can give you a nice hot wash down. You’re almost done now, you know.’
‘Almost done?’ Rosie echoed bitterly. ‘I wish I was. It’s all just starting for me, Nurse Johnson …’
‘You don’t mean that!’
‘If the girl says that’s what she wants to do, then that’s what she wants to do,’ Doris Bellamy stated bluntly. ‘A mother knows what’s best for her own child …’
‘I’ll deal with this,’ John Gardiner rudely interrupted. Doris was his fiancée, and a decent woman. But she wasn’t his daughter’s mother, or his grandkid’s nan, so he reckoned she could mind her own business and leave him to argue with Rosie over the nipper’s future.
‘You won’t change my mind, Dad. I’ve already spoken to Nurse Johnson and she says there are plenty of people ready to give a baby a good home.’
‘Does she now!’ John exploded. ‘Well, I know where that particular baby’ll get a good home ’n’ all. And it’s right here!’ He punched a forefinger at the ceiling. ‘The little mite won’t have to go nowhere. She’s our own flesh and blood and I ain’t treating her like she’s rubbish to be dumped!’
‘She’s not just our flesh and blood, though, is she, Dad?’ Rosie’s voice quavered but she cleared her throat and soldiered determinedly on. ‘She’s tainted by him. I can’t even bear to look at her in case I see his likeness in her.’
‘Forget about him; he’s long gone and can’t hurt you no more.’ John flicked some contemptuous fingers.
‘It’s all right for you!’ Rosie was incensed at her father’s attitude. ‘You just want a pretty toy to show off for a few years till you’re bored of teething and tantrums. You certainly won’t want her around if she turns out anything like that swine.’ Rosie forked agitated fingers into her blonde hair.
‘I think you’d better take that remark back, miss!’ John had leaped up, flinging off Doris’s restraining hand as she tried to drag him back down beside her on the sofa. ‘How dare you accuse me of play-acting? It’s you keeps chopping ’n’ changing yer ideas, my gel.’ John advanced on his daughter, finger wagging in emphasis. ‘I offered at the time to put things right. Soon as we found out about your condition I said I’d stump up to sort it out. Wouldn’t have it, though, would yer? Insisted you was having the baby and was prepared for all the gossip and hardship facing you as an unmarried mother.’ He barked a laugh. ‘Now you want to duck out without even giving it a try.’
‘I said I’d have the kid, not that I’d give it a permanent home,’ Rosie shouted. ‘I’ve got to act before it’s too late: once she gets to know us as her family it wouldn’t be fair to send her away.’
‘It ain’t fair anytime, that’s the point!’ John roared.
‘But … I might never love her. I might even grow to hate her,’ Rosie choked. ‘That’d be wicked because she could have somebody doting on her. She’s not got a clue who we are!’ Rosie surged to her feet at the parlour table, knocking over her mug of tea in the process. Automatically she set about mopping up