Dreams Can Come True (40 page)

Something was puzzling him about his grandmama. One minute she was praising Katie to the rooftops, then she seemed to push the girl away. His grandmama could be quite peculiar sometimes. Look how she’d married Mr. Arlington, a mismatch if there ever was. Him, a gentleman used to giving orders, dominated by his little wife who was several years older than him.

He remembered back to his childhood, when in his early years Grandmama seemed to figure in everything. She took him on walks, played silly games, sat on the shore while he paddled in the waves. Then suddenly there was no more Grandmama. Only Mother and a dainty doll of a sister and they had moved to a great big house with a garden to play in and a nursemaid. There was someone else too, who looked as old as his grandmama, but he had to call her Aunt Betty. She didn’t play or walk with him and he had to be good if she looked after him. It had been like that until his father returned, then back came Grandmama, appearing once more in his life.

“Is that you, Michael?” Alice called, as her grandson walked into the hallway.

“I’m in the kitchen cutting yer some sandwiches for your journey tomorrow. Come through and I’ll make yer a cup of tea.”

“Grandmama, you don’t have to make me sandwiches,” said Michael, as he walked through to speak with her. “I’ve only got half an hour on the train to Chester, then I’m nearly at the barracks. I can get breakfast in the Officer’s Mess when I get there.”

“Yer need your strength, Michael, after all that sickness. Yer need building up again. These will keep the wolf from the door. And while I think about it, yer don’t seem to have good judgement seeing as you are an officer. That young woman yer brought here today, a gold digger if ever there was one. Coming here, pretending that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I know what she’s up to.”

“But Grandmama, you were the one who invited her here,” said Michael, looking at his elderly relative in astonishment. “I thought you wanted to look her over so that she could be part of the plan.”

“Well, yer didn’t tell me she was Ruthie Tibbs’ daughter, did yer? Her father was the one who tried to diddle your father out of the takings, after a fight at the quarry in ‘48.”

“That was years ago, Grandmama. How could Katie be held to account for something her father did?”

“They were rubbish, them Tibbses. The father a drunk and the mother a big fat loud mouth. Did yer know they lived in that tumbledown cottage, near where your mother used to live?”

“I can’t see how it’s got anything to do with Katie, Grandmama. She’s worked hard to become a staff nurse. If what you’re saying is true, I admire her for pulling herself up from her humble beginnings, and when you think about it, Grandmama, so should you.”

“Well, whatever,” Alice huffed, having the grace to look a little ashamed of herself. “When will you be coming back again, Michael? It doesn’t do to let the fire go out, yer know. You have to keep fanning the flames and letting them know you intend to get what’s due to yer.”

“I know that, but the problem is I have no recourse. Not when they’ve got permission from my mother to live in the place and to oversee Sheldon. I need to find her address from somewhere or maybe visit her solicitor.”

“I can help yer with that one, Michael. I can send Mr. Arlington up to see that fellow that he trained up. Richard Clegg, I think he was called. He can tell yer who the solicitor is, then you can go to see him and make your claim.”

“Oh, Grandmama, what would I do without you?” Michael stooped to kiss Alice on the cheek, who pushed him away with a satisfied smile on her face.

Hannah lay on her bed at Selwyn Lodge, her face perspiring as her contractions began coming every minute or so. The hired midwife wiped her client’s forehead with one of the birthing rags and smiled at her in encouragement.

“Come now, Mrs. Dockerty, you’ve done all this before. Keep breathing in and breathing out. That’s right, don’t start pushing yet.”

Hannah gritted her teeth and tried to do the midwife’s bidding. Though each searing pain was in itself the very devil in its agony, Hannah knew they would bring her nearer to the end of it all. She tried to fix her mind on somewhere or something that gave her pleasure. Redstone House, it had to be, and little Johnny. She conjured up pictures of her child riding on a pony; pity her father had gone and sold Simba; trotting around the paddock at the back of the house. Another pain, another picture; Eddie standing at the front of his quarry, a contented smile upon his face. Redstone House blurred with Selwyn Lodge. Which one had the apple orchard, which the conservatory?

“Mrs. Dockerty, it’s time fer pushing. I can see the head, now push again.”

The midwife was crouching at the bottom of the bed.

“Now pant, stop pushing, pant again, stop pushing. Now big push, I can see its shoulders. Now rest, now pant, another push. There, you’ve nearly done it. One more big push…”

Hannah felt as if she was being split in two as the baby made its way into the world. It slithered with a mighty plop into the midwife’s hands.

“It’s a boy, another boy, Mrs. Dockerty, let me just see to the cord fer him. There, you can have the little lad when I’ve wiped him down. Oh, wait a minute he isn’t crying. Let me give him a slap on the bum… Sorry about that. Here, take him from me, he’s fine now he’s crying. Put him to yer breast, there, that’s right, let him suck while I get the other lot out.”

The midwife busied herself, wrapping up the afterbirth in a Chester newspaper and throwing away the contents on the blazing bedroom fire.

“Well, I think I’ve nearly finished. I’ll go down to the kitchen and get a cup of tea, if yer don’t mind. Shall I bring yer some and then we’ll dress him, then I’ll tidy up all the mess? Unless yer want me to do it fer yer now, but I thought you’d rather be alone fer a time.”

“I do, thank you, Midwife Thompson. We need to get to know each other, don’t we, Georgie? Don’t let my husband come up until we have had a little tidy. I want to look my best for him, not a total wreck.”

Hannah lay back, gazing with affection at the tiny features on her little son’s wrinkled face. His skin was red and his cheeks looked blotchy, his eyes had pouches underneath, but the rest of him looked strong and healthy as she pulled back his blanket to satisfy herself. Well, that hadn’t been as bad as she thought it would be. A few cramps this morning after breakfast, a stronger back ache by lunch time when she had sent for the midwife, a few hours of pushing and panting and lots and lots of pain, but look what she’d got at the end of it all. Another little Dockerty to put in the nursery!

Across the sea in Ballina, her stepmother began her birth pangs a few weeks later. This time in the back bedroom of the Heaney Hotel, with a doctor and a midwife in attendance.

The hotel was shut in the winter months, allowing Frank and Bridget to take a rest from it. They sat in the kitchen listening to the moan of the wind in the garden treetops as they waited for the midwife to come downstairs.

“Surely she’d be down by now wanting a kettle of water,” whispered Bridget, scared to speak at all, in case she missed any of the noises that came from overhead.

“I don’t know much about it, Bridget, as yer know. I don’t know why yer want me here at all.”

“Moral support or if there’s a problem, Frank. Though the doctor’s up there with her anyway. Poor Maggie, she’s been at it now since Thursday morning. I think that’s why the midwife’s got him here.”

“Well, how long does it take fer a woman to have a baby? Hours, days, weeks? Never having been in that position, I’m not sure what is going on.”

“Yer want to hear of the tales that Agatha comes out with. Yer know, tales of the girls giving birth in the convent. She was only telling me about this young woman who…”

“No, Bridget! No more.” Frank put his hands over his ears, so he couldn’t hear his wife. “I think I’ll go down to the river and drop in fer a drink at Matty’s. His wife’s got six, yer know and I’ve never heard him complain.”

“Get me some fish from Hancock’s then on yer way back. Maggie always likes a bit of fish on Fridays, so I’ll steam her some fer after the birth.”

Bridget was left alone, waiting anxiously. Should she go up to the bedroom and offer to make them all a cup of tea? They must be really needing one by now. Poor Maggie. It was after she had got out of bed yesterday morning that she had complained to Bridget that her back was sore and aching. Bridget had ordered her back to bed and sent Frank down to Mrs. Murphy’s to say that Maggie’s time had come.

Upstairs in Maggie’s bedroom, the doctor shook his head in despair at the woman who lay white-faced and weak with her efforts to bring her baby into the world.

“I should have been called earlier, Mrs. Murphy. It’s lying across her instead of down. No wonder there’s been nothing happening for the past few hours.”

The plump, round-faced midwife jerked her head at his accusation from where she was standing at the end of the bed.

“I was under the impression that Mrs. Haines has not had a child fer twenty three years, doctor,” she countered coldly. “This means the birth is bound to be a slow one, just like it is her first.”

“Yes, that is a probability, but did yer check its position and listen to its heart?”

“I did all that and I’ve been trying to coax the child into the birth channel, but every time I do that it goes across again. That’s why I sent fer you, Doctor. The patient has had hours of fruitless pain and agony and now she needs more help than I can give.”

“Yes, well, you were right to do so,” Dr Kerrigan said, mollified. He drew himself up to his full height of five feet nine inches and grimaced at the task he had ahead.

“There’s an opium mixture in my bag, give her some of that so she’s out of it a little. Then whoever is in charge of boiling water, I want a bowl for washing my instruments and I think we could do with a hot cup of tea.”

The midwife nodded and, after coaxing Maggie to take a good slug of the doctor’s brownish-coloured liquid, sped down the stairs where Bridget lay in waiting.

“Is Mrs. Haines all right, Mrs. Murphy? Can I be of any help?”

“Yes, yer can be of help, Mrs. Heaney. Your friend needs your prayers; she’s barely coping. The little one’s lying across her, so all her efforts have come to nothing. We need a bowl of hot water and the doctor’s asking fer a cup of tea. I’ll have one too if possible. Me hands are shaking – look at them.”

“Oh, poor Maggie. I’m glad I’ve never had any babies, Mrs. Murphy. I hear so many awful tales from our Agatha, yer know, me sister who’s at the convent where they take in fallen women? I used to think I was missing something by not having any, but we’ve been so busy with the hotel and that, it wouldn’t have been fair to have brought one up in our kind of world.”

“Children cope in most places, Mrs. Heaney, but as yer know, not everyone is blessed with a gift of one. I’ve been lucky really, all mine have reached adulthood and gone off to make new lives fer themselves, but I’ve never had the problems like Mrs. Haines is having. Mine couldn’t wait to get here, they came out like one of Hancock’s slippery eels!”

“Do yer think the doctor will be able to help her?” Bridget asked anxiously, while she poured the water from the boiling kettle into a large mixing bowl.

“Oh, he’s bound to,” the midwife said confidently, as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, waiting for the bowl to be handed over. “Can yer bring up the tea and leave it outside the bedroom door? I saw a small table on the landing that yer could put it on. I’d better go now; his tools of the trade have to be soaked in this water, then we’ll wait until that medicine he’s given her starts to do the trick.”

Maggie lay on her bed, staring in desperation at the ceiling. Her stomach felt as if she’d been crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded farm cart. There’d been no respite from it since Bridget had insisted that she went back to her bed. The midwife had been so tender at first, massaging the base of her back, murmuring encouragement every time another pain had gripped, listening intently through her little ear trumpet at the large and rippling mound. But a little while ago – or was it hours ago? – the midwife had seemed to sense a problem. The baby’s head had not come down; it was lying across Maggie’s stomach instead.

“I might have to send fer the doctor, Mrs. Haines,” she had said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “I’ll try me best to bring it round before I do so, but I think he’d best be here anyway. Now breathe fer me like this, while I do it.” And she showed Maggie how to breathe in deeply, wait and then breathe out slowly again.

The excruciating pain was too much then, and Maggie screeched as the woman tried in vain to turn the baby. She felt a jolt and then a settling, then the light around her seemed to fade away. The midwife tried again, this time without Maggie’s help or caring. She’d gone for a moment to a different place, where there was no sense of time or pain.

She awoke to misty shadows, with a man standing above her, staring down at her face. A familiar face, but one that was looking very grim.

“Mrs. Haines, it’s Doctor Kerrigan. A little problem with the baby. Can you hear me, dear? I’ll need your co-operation if we’re to get the child safely out of there.”

She stared back at him dazedly, then nodded, willing him to do anything that would take this pain from Hell away. Then the midwife brought a horrible-tasting mixture and it seemed as if her body had started floating then; floating above the bed, while she looked on down at the scene below.

She saw her legs were raised and parted just like a chicken, a chicken that was ready for the stuffing to be placed inside. Then the doctor putting his head on her stomach while plunging his hand and arm within. An odd sensation, a strange sensation; as if the man was rearranging the contents of her insides. Then a pulling, a tugging, a mighty plop, then the man’s head appearing above her again.

“Start pushing, Mrs. Haines! Mrs. Murphy, hold her hand and I’ll tell her when to push again! I can see the head, ah, push now, stop, push now, rest. Oh, God, she’ll not be feeling her contractions, I’ll have to get the forceps and do the rest myself!”