Changing Patterns (42 page)

Peter had no answer. He continued to massage Mary’s back. ‘When this baby is born … we will go home?’

‘Yes, we’ll go home.’ Mary crouched down. ‘I think it’s coming.’ Pushing Peter to one side, she collapsed onto the floor on her back, hearing herself scream, cutting off the noise by biting down on her lip and burrowing her face in the cushions. The contractions were almost continuous, she couldn’t take much more; the pain was tearing her apart, all there was was agony.

And then she saw her mother’s face, felt her cool hand on her sweating forehead.
Mam?
She was wearing the flowery wrap-around pinny she always wore.

Shush now, Mary. Winifred smiled at her. She smelt the blend of carbolic soap and lavender. You’ll be fine. She was leaning over Mary.

But then she was gone and it was Peter parting her legs, looking at her. ‘You should push now.’ His voice was low but definite. ‘Mary? Now push.’

‘The midwife?’ Mary gripped hold of one of the cushions and pulled it over her face and screamed into it. Soon it became a rhythm of pain and release. With each contraction she felt the increasing fullness between her legs. And then there was a sudden rush of pressure.

‘It’s a boy.’ She heard the smile in his voice but the pains increased again.

Another voice. Not Mam’s, not a voice in her head, another presence following a waft of air.

‘Mary? Nurse Patterson. I’m here now.’ The midwife tried to bustle Peter from Mary’s side but he didn’t move.

‘The ambulance?’ He questioned her, his old authority emerging.

‘I’m afraid we’re on our own. Two of them are already out on calls and the third has mechanical problems, I believe.’ She smiled briskly at Mary. ‘Now mother, let’s see what’s going on here.’ She rifled through her case to find gauze, clamps and scissors. ‘You can go now,’ she said to Peter, preparing the cord.

‘I will cut it,’ he said.

‘No, father, this is my job.’ She looked askance at him.

‘I know how to do this.’ He didn’t explain any more. ‘And, as you say, I am the father.’

‘Well!’

Smiling, carefully taking the scissors, he slowly cut through the umbilical cord between his wife and his child and lifted the baby onto Mary’s chest. She cupped her son’s head.

Nurse Patterson sniffed, resentful. She started to speak but then Mary panted, ‘I need to push.’

‘It’s the placenta.’ The midwife glared at Peter. ‘You will allow me?’

‘I will take our son.’ He reached over to the fireguard and pulled down the towel that had been warming.

Mary only had time to hand the baby to him before the scream erupted from her.

Nurse Patterson quickly examined her. ‘It’s not the placenta, there’s another baby.’ She looked shocked for a moment and then glanced at Mary and smiled. ‘Well, we didn’t see that coming, did we mother? You’re having twins, my dear. Next contraction, push.’

Mary threw her head back against the cushions and rode the wave of pain as the baby slid out with a tiny cry.

‘It is a girl.’ Peter gazed enthralled at the child in the midwife’s hands.

Taking advantage of his bewilderment, she laid the baby on Mary and clamped the cord in two places. At the last moment he realized what she was doing and, holding out his hand, he said, ‘Please?’

Reluctantly handing the scissors to him she shuffled back. ‘Thank you,’ he said, passing the little boy to her. ‘I did this for my son. I need that I do this for my daughter as well. I would never forgive myself if it was otherwise.’ Cutting the lifeline between his wife and children created a bond between himself and the babies.

Mary was laughing and crying at the same time. She held the little girl next to her face before exchanging her daughter for her son so the nurse could wrap her up. Even the temporary separation felt unbearable. ‘Two babies, Peter, we have two babies.’ Both children were crying now, thin wails that made Peter’s heart feel as though it would burst in his chest with happiness.

The midwife placed the baby girl next to her brother and went into the scullery, reappearing with a bowl and cloth. ‘Have you thought of names?’ She stood back, smiling at them.

‘
Meine Geliebte?
’ he said. He leaned towards her and stroked the wet strands of hair away from her face and kissed her. Her lips were slick and tasted salty.

‘Do you want to choose?’ Mary whispered, her mouth still close to his. ‘Any of your family names?’

‘No.’ There was a small sadness in him but he knew what he wanted for his children. ‘No, it would not be the right thing. I would like them to have English names. It will be easier for them.’ He touched the top of their son’s head with the back of his fingers. ‘We know they will have much to deal with.’

‘We can protect them from all that,’ Mary said. ‘We will protect them.’ She emphasised her words. ‘Heaven help anyone who crosses us, Peter. We’re a family.’

He smiled, the words echoed in his mind. ‘We are a family,’ he agreed.

Mary hesitated. ‘Before, when I did think about it, I thought about Victoria for a girl and Richard if it was a boy?’

‘Victoria and Richard it will be.’ And I will love them more than life itself, he thought. And I will always idolise you,
Liebling
.

‘Peter.’ She touched his cheek, her hand falling back on the sheet. She hurt, but right now it was nothing; the pain over the last few hours was pushed aside with a rush of the earlier guilt. ‘You forgive me?’

‘Forgive? What is there to forgive?’

‘For everything: for leaving you, for not telling you about them.’ She choked on her tears. ‘For not forgiving you right away about … about …Tom.’ She looked down at the babies, both firmly swaddled in towels, their skin mottled and bloody. Exhausted by the effort of being born, their eyes were swollen and closed and their heads flopped forward. ‘And for not resting in bed this morning. What if they’ve been born too soon because of me?’

‘There is nothing for me to forgive.’ He dared to add, ‘It was always for you to forgive me.’ There was still that small stab of fear in him.

They held one another’s gaze.

‘Babies decide when they’ll come.’ The midwife spoke briskly as she carried the metal bowls holding the remnants of the birth into the scullery. ‘Now father, you wash mother’s face, while I deal with this.’ She began to clean Mary’s thighs before pausing for a second. ‘They’re good strong babies. Small, but healthy. Twins often come early, you know. You should know. You’ve been the nurse.’ She smiled up at Mary between her knees. ‘But I’d like to get you to hospital as soon as possible. We need to get the babies, and you, checked over, my dear.’ Nurse Patterson addressed her next words to Peter. ‘Father, will you telephone again for the ambulance, while I finish cleaning mother up?’

Mary and Peter exchanged amused glances. ‘Mother?’ Mary mouthed. ‘Mother?’ She pulled a comical face.

‘Father!’ He winked before turning to go into the hall.

When he returned, shaking his head, both women looked at him.

‘The ambulance?’ Nurse Patterson said sharply.

‘Peter?’

‘The two are still out on calls, the other is not repaired. They say one will come when it can.’

‘Not good enough. We need them now.’ The midwife stood, hands on hips.

‘Why?’ Fear caught in Mary’s throat. She looked from one baby to the other and then at the woman. ‘Why, what’s wrong? Peter?’

‘There is nothing wrong.’ He glanced at the midwife.

‘No need to be hysterical, mother.’ But the woman moved closer to Peter, turning her head away from Mary. ‘We need to get them to hospital. I am worried about the little boy’s breathing and he’s slightly jaundiced.’

Peter had already noticed. ‘
Ja,
it is best, I think.’

‘Do you know of anyone with a car?’

‘
Nein.
Mary’s brother-in-law, but he is not here.’ It was too complicated to explain. ‘I will look outside.’ He moved quickly.

He didn’t realise he was in his stocking feet until he was standing on the road looking left and right. Nothing. Nobody.

And then he heard it, the whine of an engine. The milk float. He ran towards it waving both arms in the air. It stopped with a squeal of brakes.

The milkman jumped from his seat. ‘What the heck, mate?’ He was clearly shaken. ‘You could have got yourself killed.’

‘My … er … wife,’ Peter said. ‘My wife has had babies. Two of them. Twins. We need for them to go to hospital.’ He looked behind the man. ‘So?’

The driver gaped and then looked over his shoulder at the milk float. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t. More than my job’s worth. I’m on my way back to the depot with the empties.’

Peter began to take off the crates.

‘Here, you can’t do that.’ The milkman tussled with the crate Peter was holding.

‘It is happening.’ Peter glared at him. ‘With or without your help, it will happen.’ He waited until the man let go of the crate and he stacked it with the others by the front door.

The milkman flung out his arms in despair. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll do it. You go and get your missus. The name’s Joe, by the way.’

Peter ran into the kitchen. ‘I stopped the milkman.’

Mary began to laugh.

The midwife looked horrified. ‘Really, that’s not necessary.’ She hurried out to the hall. ‘I’ll try for the ambulance again.’

‘Peter?’ Mary whispered. ‘I don’t care how we get there. It’s these two I’m worried about.’

The milkman appeared in the doorway. He tipped his peaked cap to the back of his head and ran a hand over his mouth, obviously embarrassed. He coughed loudly, his large Adam’s apple moving rapidly up and down his throat. He looked at Peter. ‘We can put your missus on the back now … on a mattress or summat?’

The midwife returned. ‘They say we have to wait. It really isn’t good enough but that’s all we can do, I’m afraid.’ There was a worried furrow on her forehead. ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing else for it.’

Peter and Joe spoke at the same time. ‘There is the milk float.’

‘My milk float,’ Joe said. ‘I cleaned it out this morning. You could eat your dinner off the back of it.’

‘Slightly different than carrying two small vulnerable babies,’ she said sarcastically.

‘We are wasting time.’ Peter ran up the stairs. ‘Come, help with the mattress and blankets.’

The midwife shook her head in despair. ‘If you’re so determined—’

‘We are,’ Mary said. ‘Now, please, help me with these two.’

‘Well, I suppose there’s nothing else I can say.’ Nurse Patterson expertly took both babies in the crook of her arms. ‘But I have my dignity. I will follow on my bicycle.’

‘All okay back there?’ The driver peered through his mirror at them and shouted for what seemed to Mary the hundredth time. Deciding his precious load was worth working overtime without being paid, Joe was driving slowly and steadily all the way to Bradlow Hospital.

‘Yes.’ The chorus was the same each time, although Mary, lying in on the back of the float and almost smothered by the number of pillows and blankets Nurse Patterson had put around her, winced with every bump and hole in the road. Peter, wedged beside her, a baby in each arm, sat with his back to the cab.

Once a woman tried to flag the float down. ‘Any to spare?’ she called.

‘Sorry, missus, no milk on board and I have two half pints of my own to deliver,’ he shouted.

They left the woman staring after them.

Despite her discomfort, Mary giggled quietly at the ludicrous situation they were in. She leaned against Peter and tipped her head back to receive his kiss. What a story to tell the twins when they were older.

*

The light from the parlour window falls across the two figures standing so close in the garden they could be one. The air is still, soft in the warmth left over from the day, barely rippling through the full-leaved branches of the trees on the opposite side of the road. The moon hangs between the stars, hoary against the blue-black of the night. On the beach the waves collapse in the familiar monotonous rattle on the pebbles. The cliffs jut out, darker than the sky.

Peter turns Mary’s face towards him. They kiss. ‘Welcome home
, Liebling,
’ he says.

Pattern of Shadows:
available as ebook from
www.honno.co.uk
 
and good bookshops:

Mary is a nursing sister at a Lancashire prison camp for the housing and treatment of German POWs. Life at work is difficult but fulfilling; life at home a constant round of arguments – often prompted by her fly-by-night sister, Ellen, the apple of her short-tempered father’s eye. Then Frank turns up at the house one night – a guard at the camp, he’s been watching Mary for weeks – and won’t leave until she agrees to go out with him. But Frank is a difficult man to love and won’t take no for an answer. It isn’t long before the gossips – eager for a victim and on the look-out for fraternisation with the enemy – have Mary in their sights.

‘No ordinary love story… An intelligent, poignant first novel’ Jan Fortune Wood