The Favourite Child (13 page)

‘There you are then, and there are so many of my ladies who are desperate for help and look to me to supply it. Couldn’t you give me a hint?’

Violet considered the question with all due seriousness for a long moment. ‘Yer a funiosity, you. Thee calls yon women your patients but they’re not at all. Do yer know what thee should do? Go for training as a nurse.’

Bella looked startled. ‘How did you know that I once had a fancy to be a nurse?’

‘I’m physic.’

‘Psychic.’

‘That too. Are you gonna put kettle on again or just throw long words at me. Never mind, I’ll do it meself.’ Violet heaved herself to her feet and swung the great black iron kettle back over the fire in the huge Lancashire range that almost filled one wall of the tiny kitchen. She spent most of every Tuesday morning scrubbing and black leading it yet every night, when she retired to the bed which she shared with her husband and youngest children, the cockroaches would still creep out from under the grate, much to Violet’s despair.

Bella said, ‘I used to wish I’d been old enough to serve in the war but I was only a child when it ended. From time to time since I’ve often thought about nursing, though I knew Mother wouldn’t have approved so I kept putting it off. It never seemed to be the right moment to fight that particular battle and then I got too involved with my ‘ladies’ to have time to think about it. I certainly couldn’t leave home now.’ She explained about her mother’s stroke and Violet quietly took her seat again, expressing genuine sympathy over the news.

‘Oh, she’s improving but it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to leave home at the moment.’ Bella felt no desire to reveal her mother’s masquerade, or explain the politics of her domestic life, so merely shrugged her dreams away as if they were of no account. ‘Anyway, it’s here in Salford where I seem to do the most good. How could I leave all my ‘ladies’ who depend on me, to go off and be a nurse in some hospital or other that has any number of other nurses. No, I’ll stay here and help them as best I can.’

Violet thoughtfully rubbed a reddened hand over her sagging jowls. ‘Suit thyself. But if you want to know owt about owt, as they say round here, thee’ll have to ask Dr Sydney. I’m saying no more.’

The very next day Bella visited a book shop in St Anne’s Square, purchased a copy each of both
Married Love
and
Wise Parenthood
,
reading them from cover to cover to absorb every detail. While there was still a great deal which she didn’t fully understand, the whole puzzle was becoming much clearer, and the answer now seemed obvious.

She must set up her own Mothers’ Clinic, just as Marie Stopes and others had done.

There was, however, one huge problem. She was not, as Dr Lisle and now Violet had reminded her, a qualified nurse and in order to offer safe treatment, it was essential for the women to be tended by a professional. What she needed was a doctor, or nurse, as committed to saving the lives of exhausted mothers and their weakened infants as was she. Wasting no time, Bella set out the following evening to speak to Violet’s Dr Sydney, taking a seat in the waiting room along with dozens of others to wait for the end of surgery, despite the risk of catching some dread disease from the coughs and sneezes of the unfortunates around her.

At last, after a wait of an hour and a quarter, the last patient of the day left and Bella was finally shown into the doctor’s private sanctum. Here she pulled up short as she took in the tall, angular figure seated beside a large cluttered desk. Mousy brown hair cut short into the neck, a rather disreputable cardigan, shabby trousers and heavy working man’s boots. Were it not for the stethoscope strung about the neck, Bella might have thought she was confronting an engineer or a labourer rather than a doctor. Except for one thing.

‘You’re a woman!’

‘So my mother was led to believe. Though I think she had hopes of a more petite, feminine daughter than the baggy ragamuffin she got landed with. My father, bless his heart, was a realist and on it becoming clear that there would be no further offspring, named me for the son he’d really wanted. Sydney Palmer at your service.’ She held out a hand that was surprisingly well shaped and elegant. ‘I believe you wish to speak to me on some matter?’

The woman’s face was serene and smiling, bearing an open aspect that simply emanated friendliness and Bella quickly introduced herself, anxious to get to the issue which had become so all consuming. She explained her plan as rapidly and concisely as she could, finishing on a gasp of relief, ‘and you’re a woman doctor. Perfect.’

‘You should curb this habit of yours for stating the obvious.’ This was not said with any sign of rancour or ill feeling, rather with a tinge of amusement in the husky voice. ‘This clinic you want to set up. Who would fund it?’

Bella had spent most of the previous night sitting up in bed asking herself the very same question and, she hoped, coming up with some sort of an answer. ‘We would need to hold a meeting to which the public would of course be invited, - nay, positively encouraged - to come. Perhaps we could persuade some local dignitaries or Members of Parliament who are sympathetic to the cause.’

Dr Sydney held up one elegant hand to stem her enthusiasm. ‘You do realise how controversial the subject of birth control is. I hand it out with care, and there are few other doctors as willing to take the risk. Marie Stopes’ books provoked a huge debate which shows no signs of abating. Even those in power are divided upon the moral issues involved.’

‘I know, but surely there must be some who would support us. All we have to do then is to drum up local press interest and there we are.’

‘Becoming involved in opening a Mothers’ Clinic could well be the kind of reckless undertaking on my part which would at best lead to ridicule from professional colleagues, at worst bring about the end of my career. I need to ask myself if I’m prepared to take that risk.’

Bella read the genuine concern in Dr Sydney’s frank gaze and the burst of hope inside her quietly drained away. ‘I do see that it’s a great deal to ask. Perhaps too much.’ She got up and walked to the door. ‘I should have realised what it was I was asking of you. Of course you couldn’t possibly take such a risk.’

‘On the contrary, I’d be thrilled to help. Sit down again, Bella. Let’s thrash out the details here and now.’

These fears were proved to be well founded as it soon became clear that the setting up of a Mothers’ Clinic was not going to be quite as straightforward as Bella had hoped. Almost from the outset Dr Syd, as she insisted on being called, received a storm of angry letters from colleagues who’d heard of the planned clinic on the professional grape vine, many claiming that contraception caused sterility while others said it led to nervous breakdowns or even the asylum. One even accused them both of being ‘painted women of the worst kind.’ A description less appropriate for Dr Syd would have been hard to find, and caused them some amusement as they sat drawing up their plans over a bottle of wine one evening.

Bella tossed that particular letter onto the fire. ‘Which is where such hysteria belongs.’

‘We’d better check the rest carefully, just to make sure the objections aren’t valid or won’t lead to serious repercussions. The ignorance of doctors is our biggest stumbling block,’ Dr Syd insisted. ‘Their fears of sterility are scientifically groundless but contraception isn’t even on the syllabus during all our long years of medical studies. I consider that to be appalling. Negligent in fact.’ She could become quite agitated on the subject but Bella was glad to see how much she cared.

They were interrupted by a sharp rap upon the door which Bella opened upon a tight-faced Dr Lisle. He strode into the surgery as if he had every right to be there, his cold expression entirely matching the fishy smell which emanated from his clothing.

‘Professional duty demands that I should come and plead with you personally to think again about this foolish undertaking you are about to embark upon.’ He then proceeded to lecture them for a full twenty minutes on how they were advocating a sad lack of restraint which would lead to excessive sexual indulgence; how practising artificial prevention would result in the perpetrators becoming degenerate and their eventual offspring effeminate. ‘It is the responsibility of the husband to consult his doctor about the duties and risks of matrimony, and thereafter use whatever personal restraint seems appropriate.’

Bella was outraged. ‘The woman’s
husband
? Doesn’t that just prove our point. Who bothers to give advice to women themselves? Nobody. The man is always considered to be in charge, even of his own wife’s body.’

 
The little doctor adopted a tone of voice one might use with a child as he solemnly continued, ‘Only working men are meant to benefit from state health care. Ineffectual though it might seem at times, we cannot waste costly resources on women’s troubles. How could they ever afford to pay the necessary subscriptions?’

‘And because they can’t afford to pay, they get no help at all? Is that the way of it? It makes my blood boil.’

Dr Syd placed a restraining hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Sadly, obstetrics and gynaecology are yet more subjects that many doctors have little or no experience of. Changes are in the air, Bella, but coming far too slowly. I, for one, would be quite happy to play my own small part in speeding up the process. It’s a pity others don’t feel the same degree of compassion.’

A flush of anger crept up Dr Lisle’s neck and darkened his cheeks. ‘I do what I can but I think you overstate the need for concern. A woman has only to signal when her husband may approach for sexual favours, during the safe time in her cycle, perhaps by displaying a ribbon, worn in her hair or round her neck.’

Bella almost choked while Dr Syd mildly enquired, ‘Did you have any particular colour in mind? Perhaps pink would be most appropriate.’

‘I do not see this as a laughing matter,’ the good doctor tartly responded and stalked off into the night in high dudgeon while both women collapsed in a fit of giggles. Though in truth, it wasn’t funny at all.

The following morning the seriousness of their situation was illustrated all too clearly when Dr Syd arrived at the surgery to find scarlet paint had been daubed all over the door and windows.

‘You were right about the dangers. Are you sure you want to go on with this?’ Bella softly asked as the pair of them stood contemplating the damage.

‘Even more so.’

‘There are obviously others far more determined to stop us than the pompous Doctor Lisle. In this morning’s
Guardian
, it says The Public Morals committee, whoever they might be, have gone so far as to say that easy access to contraceptives “produces poorer hereditary stock.” You could indeed be drummed out of the profession.’

‘There are always those seeking an excuse to do that, simply because I’m a woman. No, I’m willing to take the risk. Let’s say I have my own reasons for fighting this cause. I feel fortunate to have three healthy children of my own and the knowledge on how to keep it at that. My elder sister died in childbirth although she’d been warned not to get pregnant again after a difficult labour in which her first child had died. Yet no one told her how to prevent it happening whilst still maintaining a happy marriage.’ Dr Syd stared at the scarlet paint splattered all over the surgery windows and door, eyes filling on a rush of tears. ‘It’s one of the reasons I became a doctor in the first place. We just have to make sure that we win.’ She transferred her steady gaze to Bella, who quietly nodded.

‘Oh, we’ll win. Make no mistake about that.’ Bella felt honoured to be granted this insight into Dr Syd’s motives for she seemed a very private sort of person. Somewhere in her late thirties, the doctor had served in the war but Bella had learned nothing about her family until this moment, since they only ever met at the surgery. ‘The clinic is going to be a huge success and many lives will be saved as a result. It will be a fitting tribute to your sister.’

Dr Syd blinked. ‘Thank you. What about you? You too will be vilified, an unmarried woman without even medical qualifications.’

Bella smiled. ‘Maybe I’ll rectify one or other of those valid objections, in time. I wouldn’t mind a family of my own one day, of a manageable size, of course, and properly spaced out.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Meanwhile, whatever I have to deal with can’t be anywhere near as bad as the sufferings I witness day after day. We will prevail. Nasty letters, attacks on our property or persons will only harden my resolve to win through.’