After Hours (34 page)

Sadie smiled back.

‘Lie with your legs crooked up, like this. Breathe deep.' Sarah was poised, ready for business.

The doctor arrived in the nick of time, with a young district nurse. The baby had presented in an awkward position, and for all Sadie's pushing and Sarah's practical encouragement, it was stuck in the birth canal, with just an ear and the side of its lace evident to the doctor's experienced probe. There was the added complication of the cord possibly caught around the infant's neck. The doctor and the nurse prepared Sadie for a difficult delivery with a shot of local anaesthetic. Sarah held her hand tight.

And Sadie did scream as they cut into her and used forceps to deliver the child. They worked quickly, asked her to push, through the pain, through the panic that the baby might not survive. Sadie pushed and cried out.

‘Harder,' Sarah urged. She saw the head emerge between the forceps, then the shoulders. The cord was round the neck.

Sadie wished she was dead. Tears streamed down her face, her neck ran with sweat. She pushed harder.

The doctor waited until she could grip the slippery shoulders,
laid aside the forceps, and with a little twist and a final pull, the baby was born. ‘Good,' she said. ‘Very good.' The nurse cut the cord and released the half-strangled infant. She cleared its mouth, willed it to breathe.

‘Boy or girl?' Sadie mumbled. The words rolled like heavy pebbles inside her mouth.

The doctor began to stitch. ‘A little girl, Sadie. You have a little girl.'

Sadie sobbed. She wanted her baby to live.

The nurse concentrated, on the tiny stained shape lying inert in her arms. Gently she tipped the infant upside down and applied the smart slap that was meant to make a child's lungs kick into action. Again; a second slap. The baby's arms shot wide, and in a surprised gasp, she drew her first breath.

The nurse smiled. She reached for a towel and wrapped the baby in it, wiping her face and head, handing her over to her mother. ‘A beautiful little girl,' she said. ‘And none the worse for wear.'

Sadie held the featherweight of her own child in her shaking arms. She searched her small, creased face, slid her own little finger inside her daughter's curled fist, speechless with joy.

‘She's a bit on the small side,' Sarah said, bending forward for a closer look. ‘But then, you're on the small side yourself.' She patted Sadie's hand.

‘You did very well,' Dr McLeod told her, finishing with the stitching and trying to make her patient as comfortable as possible. She eased her legs straight and the nurse put clean sheets under her.

‘Hmm.' Sarah warned them not to make the young mother's head swell. ‘Tell her that in twenty years,' she advised. ‘Time enough then for compliments.'

Sadie smiled and sighed. She handed the baby back to Sarah. ‘There's a crib made up over there.' She pointed to the corner of the room, where she had padded and lined the bottom drawer of her dressing-table with blankets and cut-down sheets. There was a tiny lace pillow, donated by Jess. ‘Bring it up close,' she pleaded, ‘where I can keep an eye on her.'

Sarah did as she was asked, her heart softening at the feel and sight of the new child. ‘She's got your eyes, see. What you gonna call her?'

‘Margaret. Richie and me decided on that for a girl.' Sadie turned her head sideways to gaze at her daughter. ‘She's beautiful, ain't she?'

‘Worth it?' the nurse asked. She bustled to pack away her things.

‘Yes,' Sadie sighed. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to wake up and find Richie there by the bedside, holding their little girl.

Throughout May, Amy was too wrapped up in her baby's feeding and general needs to look outside her own little world. They called the boy Robert, after his father, but this was soon altered to Bobby by all his fond relations, who cooed over his crib and adored his round chubbiness. He had Amy's light colouring and blue eyes. They'd never seen such a bonny baby, such a contented child. Amy walked out with him in his high pram – another contribution from Jess – through the park in the warm spring weather, enjoying the blossom and the birdsong. Rob would worry about taking him out too soon into the traffic and the noise. He worked out the quietest route to the park, and rationed the time Bobby spent in other people's arms. ‘He ain't a parcel you're posting.' He told her off for allowing Dolly and Annie too free an access. But Amy wallowed in the grandmothers' praise, and passed Bobby around as much as she pleased.

Straight away, Rob loved his son with a proud, exclusive fierceness. Though he didn't soften his public face, pretending a disdainful amusement when the womenfolk cooed, he would spend quiet time in the evening by the baby's crib, drinking in his sleeping features, keeping time with his light breathing, planning the very best for his future.

He would work even harder at the taxi business with Walter. They would build up savings until they could afford at least one smart new cab. Setting up a haulage division wasn't entirely out of the question in the long run. Talk of unemployment, strikes and
slumps wouldn't deter him. They would undercut their rivals, they would come out on top.

In this mood of determined optimism, he drove across the water one morning in late May. He planned to get to Mile End early, to catch Richie Palmer before he set out on his day's tramp after casual work. There'd be no fuss; he'd offer Richie his old job back, tell him that Walter was behind the move, let Sadie know he was doing it for the sake of the family.

Only, when Sadie came to the door of the tenement rooms, and he saw how pale and thin she looked, how her colour and life had faded, and how she greeted him with a silent, unresponsive gaze, he felt stricken with guilt.

‘I come to see the kid,' he stammered. Amy had parcelled up some clothes already too small for Bobby, and some spare blankets. He offered them to Sadie across the threshold.

Sadie motioned him in. ‘Don't worry, Richie ain't here,' she said as she noticed him looking around. ‘Wait while I go and fetch her.' She didn't show it, but she felt the enormity of the move Rob had made. When she came back from the bedroom with Meggie nestled in her arms, she entrusted her to him; a kind of peace offering.

Rob gazed at the baby. ‘Ain't she tiny?'

Sadie nodded. ‘Under six pounds when she was first born. She's gaining now, though.' She kept Meggie clean and dry and warm. She fed her on demand. She'd learnt the ropes quickly, with help from Sarah next door, and felt that every day she grew into a better mother; calmer and more confident.

Rob handed her back. ‘Our Bobby's twice that size.' He told her all about his son as Sadie made him sit at the table and offered to make him tea.

He shook his head. ‘I gotta be off soon. I came over to see Richie, as a matter of fact.' He looked round again, though he knew Sadie had said he wasn't in. ‘Where's he got to?'

For a moment Sadie tried to brush it aside. ‘He ain't here. Like I said, he's out.' She knew that Rob's unannounced visit could only mean one thing; he wanted to give Richie his job back. She gave a half-angry little laugh. ‘You missed him, Rob.'

He took in the drab, bare walls and floor; Sadie's curtains and tablecloth, her early attempts to make a home. He saw how poverty had defeated her. ‘When will I catch him in, then?' he asked, doubly stricken by conscience, determined to help set Sadie back up.

‘You won't,' she said quiedy. She felt she might as well admit what she'd kept hidden from her sisters when they'd come visiting to see the baby.

After the birth, Sadie had fallen into an exhausted sleep, dreaming of Richie holding the baby in his arms. She'd woken to an empty room. Sarah came in and said she sent word to fetch Richie back home. They'd have to wait and be patient. Daylight faded, the time came when he would trudge up the step and fling down his cap, empty handed. It passed. The slow hours of night ticked by.

Meggie cried to be fed in the dark. Sadie held her close. Morning came, grey and pale. The sun never shone down the side of the tenement. Sarah looked in to report that no one had set eyes on Richie since he'd set off yesterday morning. She warned Sadie to prepare for the worst. ‘Waiting's bad,' she said. ‘It's the worst bit.'

For two days there was no news. Sadie began to see that Richie wouldn't be there to share their beautiful baby. She was given to understand that it was a deliberate choice on his part. Sarah said there was no point telling the police: she'd heard on the grapevine that Richie had gone off of his own accord. ‘'Course, he never knew you'd go and have the baby straight off,' she reminded her. ‘Maybe he went and got a spell of work on a boat?'

But Sadie had heard that tale too often; men deserted their women and called it taking a job at sea. She remembered Annie and Wiggin. She counted the days.

Now, after she'd covered up to Jess, Hettie and Frances, she admitted the truth to Rob. ‘I ain't seen Richie since Meggie was born. He's gone and left us. It's just Meggie and me; we're all on our own.'

The pain of being abandoned by Richie struck deep at Sadie, and stunned her. Although on the surface she coped for little Meggie's sake, and held up her head in the Mile End neighbourhood, inside she felt numb. For him to leave without explanation, for him not to get in touch for news about the baby was something she refused to comprehend. How could he cut off so completely from his own flesh and blood?

‘Don't take on,' Sarah Morris advised. She appeared in Sadie's doorway one morning early in June. ‘You got your hands full now, girl, without bothering your head about things you can't change.' She'd caught Sadie wiping away the tears.

Sadie looked up and dried her eyes. Her neighbour's down-to-earth approach acted like a tonic. It wasn't as if she was alone in the world, like some women in her situation, she realized. Rob had heard the news about Richie and gone straight home to fetch Annie and Duke. Annie took one look at the room and swore to get her back to Duke Street. She would move heaven and earth to make it happen.

‘I ain't got much money put by,' Sadie admitted. ‘What I got left won't run to renting nothing posh.'

‘But you want to come back?' Annie noticed Duke paying quiet attention to the baby in her makeshift crib.

Sadie nodded, not trusting herself to speak out.

‘Yes, and I don't blame you.' Annie hurried on. ‘What must it
be like, stuck up here with no one on hand? Well, we gotta see what we can do, your pa and me.'

They'd gone off, and the whole family had rallied round with extra clothing, food and money. Her good neighbour, Sarah, kept an eye on her and Meggie, while Annie ran up and down the market on Duke Street, in and out of the shops and eating-houses, to catch word of a good room going at a low rent.

‘I brought you a bite to eat.' Sarah came in now and put a bowl of mutton broth on the table. She never changed out of her drab brown dress, roughly pinned and patched. As a concession to summer, she took off the woollen headscarf and replaced it with a faded cotton one. But nothing changed her routine of scraping a living through taking in home work: mending, washing, labelling, picking, and sitting during these long evenings humming her ukelele songs, reminiscing about the days before the war.

Sadie nodded gratefully. As she sat down to eat, she returned to her usual theme. ‘You ain't heard nothing?' Sarah was her eyes and ears on the outside world.

‘About Richie?'

‘Of course about Richie. Ain't nobody heard from him yet?'

Sarah shook her head. ‘He don't do nothing by halves, that one. He takes it into his head to do something and he makes a proper job of it.'

Sadie's mind flew back to their courtship; Richie's almost silent, dogged pursuit of her.

‘If he wants to drop out of sights ain't no one better at it than Richie Palmer. Not even Chung Ling Soo, the famous vanishing. Chinaman!' She got into her stride. ‘That Chung Ling Soo, he came from Lancashire. Ain't no more Chinaman in him than in this little finger! My Harry told me that for a fact.' She rambled back through the years. ‘Men like Richie, they don't know they're born, running away at the first: sign of trouble. Not that little Meggie's trouble, mind, but men see babies that way. He's young and strong, ain't he? He can lift a shovel and carry a sack, not like some of them poor bleeders, the returnees. You ain't seen nothing like it. They
was blinded in them trenches. They was gassed. And what did it leave them fit for, besides selling matches on a street corner?'

At last, Sadie was roused to her lover's defence.

‘Richie done his bit, Sarah. He been over the top more times than he could count.'

‘And he came back in one piece. He ain't been a mother of one of them kids killed in the schools by the bleeding bombing planes, has he? He ain't had to go down the Underground like a mole, waiting for the bugle all-clear.' Sarah catalogued the miseries of war. ‘And you ain't one of them poor young widows sitting at home waiting for the telegram to land on your mat. No, come to think of it, your luck ain't all that bad. What's one little disappointment set alongside all that? Look at you; you're young, and you can make a decent show if you put your mind to it.' She reclaimed the empty bowl and stood up from the table. ‘Comb your hair and dig out one of them fancy outfits I first saw you in. Make a bit of effort, for God's sake!'

As Sarah spoke, Sadie ran the gamut of emotions, from aching sadness, through shame, to anger. But as her decent, blunt neighbour stood with her empty dish, nodding encouragement, she laughed. ‘You think combing my hair will make all the difference?'

‘It's a start.' Sarah smiled back. ‘And don't leave it all to that little stepmother of yours,' she warned. ‘Ain't nobody going to pull you out of this mess except yourself, Sadie Parsons.'