As though the memory drifted back through a fog in her mind Rosie realised that it wasn’t just her and Dad any more. Her baby was upstairs. She’d saved her own skin and her father’s, oblivious to the fact that there were three of them now. Her little girl was all alone and defenceless in the front room and she’d not even remembered her, let alone made an effort to protect her from the bombing.
Rosie pushed herself to her feet. She stood for less than a second garnering energy and breath, then launched herself up the cellar steps, her hands and knees bloodied in the steep scramble as she lost her footing on the bricks in her insane haste. The door was open a few inches and she flew into it to run out but something had fallen at the other side, jamming it ajar. With a feral cry of fury Rosie barged her arm again and again into the door until it moved slightly and she could squeeze through the aperture. Frenziedly she kicked at the obstacles blocking her way.
Masonry from the shattered kitchen wall was piled in the hallway but she bounded over it, falling to her knees as the debris underfoot shifted, then jumping back up immediately. She’d no need to fight her way into the front room. The door had fallen flat and taken the surround and some of the plaster with it.
Rosie burst in, her chest heaving. The top of the pram was covered in rubble and a part of the window frame, jagged with glass, lay on the hood.
Flinging off the broken timbers, she swept away debris with hands and forearms, uncaring of the glass fragments ripping into her flesh. Oozing blood became caked with dust, forming thick calluses on her palms.
Hot tears streamed wide tracks down her mucky face as finally she gazed into the pram. Very carefully she put down the hood, and removed the rain cover. She was alive! Rosie picked up her daughter, wrapped in her white shawl, and breathed in the baby’s milky scent, burying her stained face against soft warm skin until the infant whimpered in protest at the vice-like embrace.
‘Thank you, God … oh, thank you …’ Rosie keened over and over again as the white shawl turned pink in her cut hands. She bent over the tiny baby as though she would again absorb her daughter into herself to keep her safe. Her quaking fingers raced up and down the little limbs, checking for damage, but the infant’s gurgling didn’t seem to be prompted by pain.
‘Let’s go and find Granddad, shall we?’ Rosie softly hiccuped against her daughter’s downy head. ‘Come on then, my darling. I’m so sorry; I swear I’ll never ever leave you again.’
When she pushed open the cellar door Rosie found her father had crawled to the bottom step and was in the process of pulling himself up it. He choked on a sob as he saw them, flopping back down against the wall.
‘I forgot about her, too,’ he gasped through his tears. ‘What sort of people are we to do something like that?’ He shook his head in despair, wailing louder. ‘It’s my fault. I was too concerned about meself to even think about saving me granddaughter.’
‘It’s all right, Dad. She’s fine, look …’ Rosie anchored the baby against her shoulder in a firm grip, then descended as quickly as she could, hanging onto the handrail. ‘Look, Dad!’ she comforted her howling father. Gently she unwrapped the child to show her father that the baby was unharmed. ‘We’re not used to having her around yet … that’s all it is. No harm done. She’s in better shape than us,’ Rosie croaked. She felt a fraud for trying to make light of it when her heart was still thudding crazily with guilt and shame.
John blew his nose. For a long moment he simply stared at his granddaughter, then he turned his head. ‘Can see now that you’re right, Rosie,’ he started gruffly. ‘She’d be better off elsewhere. Let somebody else care for her, ’cos we ain’t up to it, that’s for sure.’
Somewhere in the distance was a muffled explosion, but neither John nor Rosie heeded it, both lost in their own thoughts. Rosie settled down on the mattress. Her lips traced her daughter’s hairline, soothing the baby as she became restless. She placed the tiny bundle down beside her and covered her in a blanket, tucking the sides in carefully.
John studied his wristwatch. ‘Time for her bottle. I’ll watch her if you want to go and get it.’ Muffling moans of pain, he wriggled closer to peer at the baby’s dust-smudged face. He took out from a pocket his screwed-up hanky.
‘No! Don’t use that, Dad. It’s filthy; I’ll wash her properly later … when we go upstairs.’ Rosie smiled to show her father she appreciated his concern. But she wasn’t having him wiping her precious daughter’s face with his snot rag.
‘She’s hungry,’ John said, affronted by his daughter’s telling off.
Rosie made to get up, then sank back down to the mattress again. ‘Kitchen’s blown to smithereens. Won’t find the bottles or the milk powder; won’t be able to wash her either, if the water’s off.’ She began unbuttoning her bodice. ‘I’ll feed her,’ she said. Turning a shoulder to her father so as not to embarrass him, she helped the child to latch onto a nipple. Her breasts were rock hard with milk, hot and swollen, but she put up with the discomfort, biting her lip against the pain. She encouraged the baby to feed with tiny caresses until finally she stopped suckling and seemed to fall asleep with a sated sigh.
‘What you gonna call her?’ John whispered. He had rolled over onto his side, away from mother and child to give them some privacy. His voice sounded different: high-pitched with pain still, but there was an underlying satisfaction in his tone.
Rosie smiled to herself, wondering how her father knew she’d been thinking about names for her daughter. ‘Hope …’ she said on a hysterical giggle. ‘Seems right … so that’s what I’m choosing. Hope this bloody war ends soon … hope we get a place to live … hope … hope … hope …’
‘Hope the doctors sort me bloody leg out for us, I know that.’ John joined in gruffly with the joke.
‘You’ll be right as rain with a peg leg … Long John Silver,’ Rosie teased.
They both chuckled although John’s laughter ended in a groan and he shifted position to ease his damaged limb.
In her mind Rosie knew she’d chosen her daughter’s name for a different reason entirely from those she’d given. Her greatest hope was that her daughter would forgive her if she ever discovered that she’d abandoned her like that. The poor little mite could have suffocated to death if she’d not been uncovered in time. Or the weight of the shattered window frame on top of the pram might even-tually have crushed the hood and her daughter’s delicate skull. The idea that Hope might have suffered a painful death made bile rise in Rosie’s throat. She closed her eyes and forced her thoughts to her other hope.
She hoped that Nurse Johnson would forgive her. The woman desperately wanted to be a mother, and Rosie had promised her that her dream would be real. Rosie sank back on the mattress beside Hope and curved a protective arm over her daughter as she slept, a trace of milk circling her mouth.
But Rosie had no intention of allowing anybody to take her Hope away now. She’d do anything to keep her.
‘Hear that Dad?’
‘What … love?’ John’s voice was barely audible.
‘Bells … ambulance or fire engine is on its way. You’ll be in hospital soon,’ she promised him. While she’d been cuddling her little girl she’d heard her father’s groans although he’d been attempting to muffle the distressing sounds.
‘Ain’t going to hospital; they can patch me up here,’ he wheezed.
‘Don’t be daft!’ Rosie said but there was a levity in her tone that had been absent before. She couldn’t be sure which of the services was racing to their aid and she didn’t care. She was simply glad that somebody might turn up and know what to do if her father passed out from the