Mud and Gold (26 page)

‘She’s just had a baby, Mr Stewart,’ Mrs
Coulson said sharply. ‘That takes a bit more energy than making
your breakfast. The poor girl’s worn out.’

‘Oh.’ Charlie looked surprised at this idea.
‘She’ll get over it, won’t she?’

‘Yes, she will,’ the nurse said. ‘Women have
to get over it. And she’s young and strong. You can go now, I want
her to get some rest.’

She came back muttering to herself when she
had closed her front door on Charlie. ‘Men have no idea,’ Amy heard
her say. ‘No idea at all.’ She popped her head round the bedroom
door. ‘Go to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll come back and give you a bit
more of a tidy-up later.’

Amy spent the next few hours in a half-doze,
but was glad of the company when Mrs Coulson came back to her
around midday. ‘Don’t sit up,’ the nurse told her. ‘I can do what’s
needed with you flat on your back. I just need to clean up the
fresh lot of blood that’s come since this morning.’

Amy felt the nurse sponging her loins. She
winced at the touch, gentle though it was. ‘Everything hurts so
much,’ she said. ‘Oh, and I feel so awful. Why do I feel so sick?
I’m worse than last time.’

‘You lost more blood this time, dear—and
last time was bad enough for that. Nothing dangerous, but it’ll
leave you feeling rather feeble for a while. It’s these big babies
of yours, darling.’

‘I’m too small, aren’t I?’

‘Your husband’s too big, that’s another way
of looking at it.’ The nurse pulled Amy’s nightdress back down over
her thighs and sat on the chair by the bed. ‘Don’t worry, dear,
you’ll feel stronger soon. I’ll look after you until you do.’

‘Thank you.’ Amy studied Mrs Coulson’s
tender expression. The kindness, coupled with her weakness, made
her feel safe. ‘Charlie’s pleased about the baby, don’t you think?
He didn’t say much, but he looked a bit pleased.’

Mrs Coulson pursed her lips. ‘If that man
doesn’t wake up every day thinking he’s the luckiest man in the
world to have a wife like you and these two fine sons you’ve given
him—now, don’t shake your head at me like that.’

‘No,’ Amy said tiredly. There seemed no need
to pretend with Mrs Coulson. ‘He loves Mal, and he’ll like the new
baby too. But he doesn’t like me.’

‘Don’t be silly, dear—who could help liking
you?’

‘Charlie doesn’t. He’s sort of got used to
me, but he doesn’t like me. I don’t think he ever will.’ Amy was
too weary to feel more than a resigned sadness.

‘Now, dear, you’re just thinking like that
because you’re worn out. Of course he likes you—I doubt if anyone
exactly twisted
his
arm to make him marry you.’

‘I think…’ Amy stopped to put her thoughts
in order. ‘I don’t really understand it properly, but I think
Charlie expected I’d be different from how I am. I’m not exactly
sure what he wanted, but I know I’m not it. I’ve tried and tried,
but I just can’t seem to please him. I can’t seem to make him
happy.’

Amy had not even known she was weeping until
she felt Mrs Coulson wiping her face with a handkerchief. ‘If you
can’t make him happy, darling, then I don’t think any woman on
earth could.’

‘But if I was a good wife he’d like me,
wouldn’t he?’

‘If he wasn’t a bigger fool than most men
he’d worship the ground you walk on. Shh now, dear, or you’ll have
me saying something I shouldn’t.’

Amy looked down at the cradle. ‘Charlie’s
not going to love this baby as much as he does Mal. I think he’ll
like him, and he’ll be a good father to him, but it won’t be really
special for him this time. Maybe it’s because Mal was his first
child—Mrs Coulson, do you think there’s something special about a
person’s first baby? Something that makes them love it more than
the other ones?’
Is that why I loved Ann so much? Or just
because she was my baby, and these ones belong to Charlie?

‘There’s something in that,’ Mrs Coulson
said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know about loving the first one more—my
oldest was certainly more of a trial to me than the others, till
she grew up a bit, anyway. But the one that makes you a mother…
well, that’s the most special thing that can happen to a woman,
isn’t it?’ She smiled at Amy. ‘I’m sure you’ll love this little
fellow just as much as you do your Malcolm. Don’t twist like that,
darling,’ she warned when Amy tried to roll onto her side to look
at the baby more closely, but it was too late. Amy let out a gasp
of pain.

‘Oh, it hurts!’

Mrs Coulson nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s
the stitches. Another big baby, another big tear in you. You’ll
have to lie as still as you can for a while.’

‘Stitches. I’d forgotten about those.’ Amy
closed her eyes, trying to hide from the memory of those agonised
nights after Malcolm’s birth, when Charlie had decided she was
ready to meet his demands.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to have them every
time now, dear. Once one baby’s ripped you it makes your flesh a
bit weak, so all the others tear you in the same places.’

‘I see. I didn’t know that.’ She did not
trust herself to speak further without breaking down. Mrs Coulson
soon left her alone, with an injunction to try and sleep again.

Late that night Amy was woken by the feeble
sound of the baby’s crying. Mrs Coulson was beside the cradle in a
flash, lifting the baby ready to hold him to Amy’s breasts.

‘Don’t move, darling,’ the nurse whispered
to her. ‘You don’t even have to wake up properly. You just leave it
all up to me.’ She let the baby suckle for a short time, then
settled him back in the cradle and returned to the sofa she slept
on while Amy used the big bed.

But Amy was wide awake now. The baby’s cries
had brought back other memories of Malcolm’s babyhood: memories of
broken nights, with Charlie complaining about his disturbed sleep
when he wasn’t inflicting agony on her, or shaking her angrily for
not being able to hide how much she hated what he was doing to
her.

The room was silent except for the tiny
noises of the baby’s snuffly breathing. When she could no longer
weep silently, Amy muffled her small sobs in the pillow. She
thought she was succeeding in keeping her misery secret until she
felt a hand on her heaving shoulder, and turned her face to see Mrs
Coulson kneeling beside the bed.

‘What’s wrong, darling?’ the nurse asked
quietly. ‘What’s upsetting you so much?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Amy choked out between sobs. ‘I
didn’t mean to wake you up.’

‘Never mind about me, I don’t need much
sleep anyway. Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘It’s…’ Amy took a gulp of air and tried to
speak more calmly. ‘The baby wakes up and cries. He’ll wake up in
the night for ages.’

‘Well, yes, dear, babies do wake in the
night. You knew that, why’s it worrying you so much now?’

‘I’d forgotten. It made Charlie so
bad-tempered when Mal was doing it. Now it’s all going to start
again.’

‘I’ll give you some laudanum to take home,
that’ll make the little fellow sleep if the nights get too much for
you. You’ve got to be careful using it on little ones, but
sometimes there’s nothing else to be done. But darling…’

Mrs Coulson was silent for a moment. She
went on in a measured tone, as if trying hard to be fair. ‘You have
to remember, your husband’s a bit old to be going through all this
with small babies. Most men would be nigh on twenty years younger
than him when their first child’s born. People get less patient as
they get older.’

‘I know. I try and keep him happy, so the
baby won’t annoy him too much. But it’s hard to be careful all the
time, especially when there’s a little baby to look after.’

‘Don’t try too hard, sweetheart. You mustn’t
run yourself ragged. The worst time passes soon enough with little
ones.’

‘But I have to try hard. I have to. I’ve got
to do my best to make Charlie happy—that’s my duty. That’s how I
have try and make up for all the wrong things I’ve done.’

‘You?’ Amy could hear the smile in Mrs
Coulson’s voice. ‘I doubt if you’ve done anything in your life
worse than sneaking extra biscuits from the tin.’

‘I have. I’ve done terrible, terrible
things.’
I was wicked with Jimmy. I made Pa so unhappy. I gave
away my baby
. A sob racked her. She pressed her face into the
pillow once again.

‘Shh, shh,’ Mrs Coulson soothed, rubbing her
hand softly across Amy’s shoulders. ‘Everything seems worse in the
middle of the night. You just forget about all the terrible things
you imagine you’ve done—and I don’t believe a word of it, by the
way—and think about this lovely little baby you’ve got.’

‘And I’ve got stitches,’ Amy said into the
pillow.

‘What was that, dear?’

Amy rolled onto her back, the movement
sending knife-thrusts of pain through her. ‘Stitches. I didn’t know
I’d have to have them again.’ The last word was almost a wail. She
put her hand over her mouth to smother the sob.

‘Are they really hurting you, darling?’
There was concern in Mrs Coulson’s voice. ‘I’ll have a good look at
them in the morning to see if something’s not right, but perhaps
I’d better give you a bit of laudanum now to help you sleep.’

‘It’s the stitches. All those places where I
got torn. It makes me so sore, and Ch-Charlie gets so angry with
me, and…’ Amy gave up trying to talk and abandoned herself to the
tears.

‘Ah, I see,’ Mrs Coulson said. ‘It takes you
a long time to get back to normal down below because you’re torn up
so badly. So that’s the trouble with him, is it? Gets grumpy
because he has to do without for a while?’

Amy looked at the paler patch of shadow that
was Mrs Coulson in her nightdress. It was easy to whisper into the
darkness things she could never have said in the light. ‘Do
without?’ she echoed in bewilderment. ‘It’s because I cry, and he
can tell it’s hurting me, and that makes him angry… I don’t cry
usually, really I don’t. Only the first few weeks, when I was so
frightened all the time. Then when Mal was born it all started
again. I tried not to show it, but I couldn’t help it. It hurt so
much. And now it’s g-going to happen again.’

There was silence in the room for a long
moment. ‘Are you telling me,’ Mrs Coulson said slowly, ‘he forced
himself on you while you were in that state? All ripped up from
bearing his great big son? My dear, you must have been nearly mad
with the pain!’

‘Forced?’ Amy shook her head in confusion.
‘But he’s my husband. It’s his right. I just wish he wouldn’t get
so angry with me.’

‘I think, dear,’ Mrs Coulson said, her voice
shaking slightly, ‘you’d better not tell me anything else.’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling anyone
things like that. Charlie wouldn’t like it if he heard me.’

Mrs Coulson gripped Amy’s arm. ‘That’s not
what I meant. If I heard any more, I don’t think I’d be able to
send you home. I think I’d want to keep you here with me.’ She
slipped her arms around Amy and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Poor
child. What on earth were they thinking of, making you marry
him?’

I wish I didn’t have to go back
. But
Amy would not say the words aloud. She had to return to Charlie’s
house. She had to do her duty. ‘Nobody made me marry him,’ she
said, trying to sound calm. ‘It was my own decision. Nobody forced
me.’

‘There’s more ways of forcing than holding a
gun to your head,’ Mrs Coulson said grimly, but Amy did not reply
and the nurse did not press her further.

Mrs Coulson did not mention their midnight
conversation again, although Amy saw the nurse looking at her with
her brow furrowed many times over the next few days. Her strength
seemed slower in returning this time; it was several days before
she could sit up in bed for more than a few minutes at a stretch.
But as soon as she felt able to spend half an hour or so propped up
against the pillows, Mrs Coulson gave in and let her have the
needle and thread she begged for. Lizzie brought in a length of
flannelette, and Amy was soon busily hemming squares into napkins
for the new baby.

‘They go through so many, don’t they?’ Amy
remarked as she finished yet another one. ‘Especially while they’re
little. At least Mal doesn’t dirty as many now—I don’t think
Susannah’s too pleased at having all that extra washing while she’s
looking after him, though.’

‘Mmm. She looks even more of an acid drop
than usual lately,’ Mrs Coulson agreed. ‘You know, I often think
men are the biggest babies of all, but at least you don’t have to
keep them in nappies.’

Amy laughed aloud at the idea of a grown man
in napkins, and Mrs Coulson smiled back at her. ‘It’s good to see
you laugh, dear.’

‘I’ve been a real misery lately, haven’t I?’
Amy said. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so silly—’

‘Stop that at once,’ Mrs Coulson
interrupted. ‘I don’t want to hear another “I’m sorry” from you.
You spend far too much time apologising to the world.’

‘I’m sor—’ Amy began. She looked at Mrs
Coulson and laughed again. ‘All right, I’ll try not to say it all
day. Will that do?’

‘It’s a start,’ Mrs Coulson conceded. ‘Oh, I
think the little fellow’s stirring. Put that needle well out of the
way and I’ll fetch him up to you.’

Once the baby was suckling, Mrs Coulson took
up her own needle and continued stitching away at a chemise she was
mending. ‘I’d better go and see what sort of a job young Nellie’s
making of getting those vegetables ready when this fellow’s had his
feed. What do you think you might like for pudding? I went over to
the store this morning, so my larder’s full.’

‘Just anything,’ Amy said in surprise.
‘Whatever you want to have.’

‘I want to make something
you
like.
Now you’ve got your appetite back properly you can appreciate a
decent feed. What’s your favourite pudding?’

‘I make a steamed pudding with jam quite a
lot, that’s one of Charlie’s favourites.’

‘Sweetheart, I’m not making your husband a
pudding, I’m making
you
one. There must be something you
specially like.’