Birmingham Friends (20 page)

Ruth Harvey stared up at me, her face very still and white. She was holding a creamy sheet of paper.

‘No!’ I shrieked, as if at a torturer. ‘Oh no no no. Please no!’ I sank down in the middle of the staircase.

‘Kate,’ Mummy said sternly. ‘Control yourself, for heaven’s sake.’

Ruth climbed up and sat on the step beside me, taking me in her arms. When I looked at her face she seemed to have aged and shrunk.

‘It says he’s missing.’ She held out the telegram to me. ‘There may be hope. It could just be . . .’

‘What?’ I couldn’t think at all, or make sense of anything.

‘Perhaps he landed somewhere – or parachuted, and they haven’t found him yet. We can make inquiries. There’s a special section of the Red Cross . . .’

I only half heard what she said, but I knew then already like a doom drum beating in my mind and I could only think, Angus is dead, Angus is dead. Ruth Harvey had shiny black buttons on her cardigan and leaves stuck to her shoes. My mother stood very still, hand on the banisters, looking up at us.

‘Katie?’ Ruth gripped my shoulders powerfully with her arm. ‘We’ve got to be strong – for him. We can’t give up hope. He could be making contact with them even now.’

I thought Ruth was not a woman to spin me false optimism. I turned and looked up into her eyes. ‘D’you really think so?’

‘I have to. I can’t do anything else for now.’ Only then did she begin to sob, her body jerking, though no tears fell from her eyes. Her mouth pulled to one side. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t bear it.’

I put my arms round her, noticing how much grey there was among her brown hairs. My mother disappeared along the hall to the kitchen and I heard her rattling cups and saucers.

We drank our cups of tea almost in silence before Ruth left, folding her arms tightly across her chest. I saw her rally herself.

‘I’ll go and take this off,’ she said, touching the black cardigan. ‘It seems to indicate a lack of faith, doesn’t it?’

If it had not been for Ruth and Peter Harvey I would have despaired during those months. There was no one else I could turn to. We all tried to get on with the business of our lives as the war reached its gloomiest. The fall of Singapore to the Japanese, the Battle of the Atlantic, people demonstrating on the streets for a second front to be opened in Europe. The Harveys spent months in correspondence with the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Relatives Department.

‘I just feel sure there must be hope,’ Ruth said to me one day after another ICRC missive had arrived saying that they had so far drawn a blank but would try to pursue inquiries further. ‘He could be in hospital. Or lost in the countryside. If your plane lands in the middle of nowhere, how are you supposed to find your way out? It could be months, couldn’t it?’ Her voice rose high, full of tears. Peter came and put his arm round her, his gnarled hand stroking her shoulder. He had lost weight since the news about Angus, and his cheeks were gaunt, showing deeper shadows. He had not been a fleshy man before.

‘All we can do is hope and pray,’ he said. ‘If Angus is alive, we know we’ll hear eventually. Of course we will.’

‘Suppose he’s lost his memory or something like that?’ Ruth said wildly. ‘I keep picturing the most dreadful things.’ She put her hands over her face. Peter guided her to a seat.

I was prepared for the worst. Though I couldn’t help a rush of hope at the infrequent communications from the Red Cross, I forced the feelings away each time their searches yielded nothing. Angus was dead. I could sense it. A terrible knowledge like a light going out somewhere across the world that I couldn’t see, yet sensed it growing darker. I didn’t voice this to the Harveys, but I could at least share other feelings about Angus with them. We remembered him together.

Confiding feelings was something I had given up trying to do with my parents. Even when I made the mildest attempts to open up to my mother, everything, down to the sharp, defensive angles of her elbows conveyed to me that she did not want to listen. Could not endure it.

One weekend during that summer, just before I started my first post as Health Visitor, I was working out in the garden. It was a humid morning. My hands were clammy. And it was sunny, poignant in the illusion of tranquillity. The hearts of the lettuces were washed in dew, and we had good crops of spinach, carrots, beetroot and onions. At one end my mother had set up bean-sticks and the plants snaked up them, mingled at one end with the bright tendrils of flowering sweet peas, her favourites. I stood looking at them, at the pinks, mauves and whites, which had always represented summer and friendship and a kind of innocence. I had not cried much over Angus. The feelings crouched inside, hurting me. I bent over and began to weed for victory between the carrots and onions.

My mother came out with a basket of handwashing for the line. We were silent together among the buzzing insects. Then I realized she was standing at the edge of the vegetable patch next to me. She must have sensed I was close to tears.

She cleared her throat, awkwardly. ‘It’s been a great help having you back at home.’

I straightened up and looked at her. In the bright sunlight her sharp-featured face looked weary and lined. Her hair was still long and pinned up carelessly behind so that bits of it were always coming loose. Seeing the pain in my eyes, her face crumpled suddenly and she burst into tears.

‘Mummy – what’s the matter?’ I stepped across the onions to stand on the grass beside her. I didn’t know what to do with my hands and wished it could have felt natural to embrace her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know how to be of comfort to you.’ She couldn’t meet my eyes. She looked down at the ground. ‘I know how unhappy you are – and Ruth. I just . . .’ She paused with a helpless shrug. ‘In some ways it would be better if you and Angus had never got so . . . closely involved. Then you could just get on with your life.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking like this. Not now.’ Pulling a hanky from her sleeve she blew her nose on it resolutely. ‘Oh, this dreadful war!’ She picked up the wicker basket and quickly crossed the lawn to the house.

Watching her go, I felt a heaving sensation from inside me and thought for a moment I was going to be sick. But then instead, the tears came. I sat down on the grass, head on my knees, and cried and cried. Then I dried my tears alone.

*

‘Here – you gas or ’lectric?’

‘Come to read the meter, ’ave yer?’

Two scruffy boys dashed sniggering away from me down the entry into number eight court Stanley Street, their bare legs splashed with muddy water from the recent rain. Wearily I pushed my bicycle along the wet blue bricks of the entry and propped it against the wall near the yard tap, opposite the back houses. There were children playing round the gas lamp in the middle of the yard, and a woman stood mangling her washing.

She eyed me up, throwing the garment she had been about to mangle back into the maiding tub. ‘They won’t ’alf be glad to see you!’ she called out to me, disappearing into one of the houses.

It was September, and early days in my job as a Health Visitor. It had not been a good morning. I’d already found one baby with chronic diarrhoea. Her mother was feeding her condensed milk from an old Daddy’s Sauce bottle with a couple of inches of decayed rubber tubing. Another woman had called me an ‘interfering cow’ when I suggested she might spoil her baby when feeding it whenever it demanded and carrying it round all over the place. A feed every four hours, we were taught, and not too much cuddling and stimulation. ‘I didn’t ask you to come forcing your ideas on me, did I?’ the woman said aggressively. The Welfare. Snoopers. That’s how we were seen, though not many came out with it as bluntly as that. The majority listened politely and probably ignored a large percentage of what I said. Sometimes I looked back with longing for the hospital and its controlled environment.

Still, Mrs Callaghan, the young mother I had come to visit, was gentle enough and had a thriving week-old baby. I was just gathering up my bag with the leaflets on breastfeeding and brushing down my blue serge skirt when a voice behind me shrieked, ‘Thank God you’re ’ere – come on, quick, or we’ll be too late!’

A young woman in a worn grey dress, with sandy-coloured hair, was hopping agitatedly from foot to foot, her pasty face taut with anxiety. ‘Hurry up – Margaret’s up there on ’er own with ’er.’

‘You mean . . .? But I’m not the midwife.’

‘I know you’re not the flaming midwife. We can’t find ’er anywhere. The babby’s come on fast and the doctor’s not ’ere yet neither.’

She made as if to take hold of my arm, but I said, ‘All right, I’m coming,’ and we hurried across the wet yard. As we passed through the front door, though it was much like any of the other houses, I had a strong sense of having been here before. In the gloomy downstairs room an elderly man was sitting smoking, stretched out in an armchair in a stained singlet and trousers with the fly unbuttoned. At the tinny fender sat a young boy intent on a comic, and two other tiny children cruised round what remained of the floor space. In those few seconds passing through the room, I took in that the dark shape taking up most of the centre of the room was a coffin.

God Almighty, I thought. But I was on the stairs with my heart thumping. Let this one be normal, please, I prayed as we clattered up the bare treads. And let the doctor get here soon.

‘About time,’ said a voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Thought I’d ’ave to deliver it meself.’

A hefty middle-aged woman with a black plait coiled above each ear and a round fleshy face ushered us into the room. Our feet crackled on the floor which was strewn with newspaper. There was a pungent smell of sweat in the room.

‘I’m Margaret and this is Sandy,’ the older woman said. ‘We’re neighbours of ’ers.’ She seemed very capable and had evidently helped organize the room. ‘I’ve ’ad a good few meself,’ she went on. ‘But I draw the line at delivering ’em. Still – got the place sorted out too. Not too bright about keeping house this one.’

I took off my hat, glancing round. There were two narrow beds in the room. Clothes were hanging from oddly distributed hooks round the walls.

‘I’ll need to wash my hands.’ I glanced at the silent woman on the bed. She hadn’t even bothered to look round when I came in. She was lying curled on her left side, covered only by a stained sheet. Apart from one hard chair the beds were the only furniture in the room. ‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s grand,’ Margaret said. ‘ ’Ere you are – ’ She presented me with piping hot water in a bucket. As I hurriedly covered my hands with the carbolic soap and rinsed them off, the woman on the bed gave a low moan.

‘Awright,’ Margaret said, going to her. ‘Not long now.’ I realized the sweaty smell came from under the arms of the tight, crimson dress she was wearing. ‘Don’t fret, bab.’

Tied to the end of the bed was an old strip of towelling. The woman’s hands tightened on it, her whole body tensing as she panted through the pains, the veins standing out on her neck. She was a strong-looking woman, about my own age I realized, with straight brown hair.

‘You’re going to be absolutely fine,’ I said in my firmest nurse’s voice, hoping to God it was true. The woman didn’t reply except with a long sigh as the pain subsided, her eyes closed.

‘You’re getting close, aren’t you?’ I said.

She opened her eyes and nodded. Then her face contorted. ‘Oh, not again.’

She showed the immense control that I’d seen in so many women giving birth at home, their children waiting downstairs, even though she was obviously in agony. She pulled herself up on to her knees. At the height of the pain she pushed her head into the pillow and groaned into it before lying still again.

‘Least it’s quiet out now,’ Margaret remarked, jerking a thumb towards the window. ‘We ’ad one or two come on in the bombing and oh my, what a to-do. Cissy Taylor’s babby arrived in the shelter.’

‘I’ve got scissors,’ I interrupted as the contractions began again. They were very close together. Sandy was kneeling by the bed saying, ‘It’s all right, Lisa – you’re nearly there.’

‘Have you any string?’

Margaret calmly held up a twist of white twine. ‘We’re all prepared. All we need now’s the babby.’

The woman suddenly hauled herself up from the bed on to her knees, her teeth clenched.

‘Oh, lor’ – ’ere we go,’ Margaret said. I found her stolid calmness reassuring. ‘Here, Sandy – cop ’old of ’er other arm. We can ’old her up between the pair of us.’

Once the baby started to come down it was very quick.

‘It’s ’er fourth,’ Sandy said. ‘So she ain’t no beginner.’

As the two women held her in a half-sitting position, her knees up, I guided the baby’s head out. I saw the strength of her body, the self-control, even in that crisis, of not crying out. The little sticky body slithered into my hands. I looked up at her mother who shimmered in front of me through my tears. She craned her head up to see.

‘You’ve got a little girl,’ I told her as the child roared in healthy protest between my hands.

‘Oh, a little girl – at last!’ Weakly she sank back on to the pillow.

‘Eh – ’ Sandy was at the window. ‘Looks as if the doctor’s got ’isself ’ere at last.’

I had wrapped the baby in a strip of sheet, and was tying off the umbilical cord as the footsteps grew louder up the stairs. Seconds later I found myself face to face with my father.

‘Katie!’ he exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

Margaret and Sandy stared from one to the other of us, bewildered.

‘Delivering a baby,’ I said briskly.

He watched as I deftly knotted the string tight round the quivering cord and cut the child’s lifeline from her mother.

‘Placenta?’

‘Not yet.’

As she began to moan a little, I went and massaged her stomach. Minutes later the birth was complete, and Margaret and Sandy washed her down and covered her up again. As they tended to her I noticed that the soles of her feet were black with grime.

She saw the direction of my gaze. ‘I went down to the shops just before,’ she said apologetically. ‘That’s what must’ve set it off.’