The Girl with the Creel (28 page)

She had been in bed for over an hour, unable to sleep because of the chill seeping right into her bones, when a thunderous knocking made her sit up in alarm. At the next assault she jumped out of bed and pulled on her coat to go and see who was at her door; when she beheld Mick, his face white and his eyes starting out of his head, she was sure she knew why he had come.

He barged right in, and she closed the door to keep out the wintry blast. ‘Is it Mother?' she asked anxiously.

Giving a loud groan, he gathered her in his arms. ‘No, Lizann, it's worse than that. Oh God, I wish I didn't have to tell you.'

‘Tell me what? Oh, Mick, what's happened?'

‘It's George! We were on our way back to port, and … the sea was that rough it was coming right over the bows, and he was walking from the wheelhouse …'

The pause made her cry out, ‘Tell me, Mick, tell me!'

‘I can hardly bear to say it. You see, another wave came up and took him over the side.'

‘Is he hurt? Is he badly injured?'

Dissolving into tears, Mick burst out, ‘We couldn't see any sign of him! We couldn't save him! Oh, Lizann, we did everything we could. We circled round and round for hours, but he never surfaced. I'm sorry, I'm sorry!'

His arms tightened round her, and although she hadn't yet taken it in properly, she had the feeling that if he hadn't been holding her up her legs would have buckled under her. Great sobs were shaking his body, and she automatically stroked his head for a few moments before she was struck by the awful realization of why he was crying. With the cramping of her stomach in grief, she screamed, ‘Not George! Not my George!'

‘I'm sorry!' Mick repeated. ‘I wish to God it had been me!'

Their tears bonding their cheeks together, they stood for some minutes holding each other as if afraid to let go, then, to her further horror, Lizann recognized the down-bearing pains of childbirth. ‘Oh, Mick,' she gasped, ‘I think the baby's coming!'

He released her so abruptly that she reeled back and he had to grab her arms to save her from falling. ‘Oh Christ!' he groaned. ‘The shock must have brought it on.'

She tried to keep calm, but her eyes were pleading and her voice shook as she said, ‘You'll have to help me, Mick, there's no time to get the midwife.'

He looked at her helplessly. ‘You'll have to tell me what to do.'

She stared back at him, equally helplessly. ‘I don't know myself.'

In an effort to reassure her he said the first thing that occurred to him. ‘You'll have to take off that coat, and I'd better boil the kettle. We'll need a lot of hot water.' He didn't know why, but he had heard it somewhere and it sounded efficient.

Already shivering with dread at what she would have to go through, she murmured, ‘I'll have to go back to bed, I suppose, so you'd better light the fire through there.'

As he went into the bedroom, another fierce pain made her moan, but thankfully it didn't last long. Unbuttoning her coat, she looked down at her swollen belly, the skin stretched taut across it, and suddenly felt embarrassed that her brother would see it through her old nightie. But what did it matter? He was going to see a lot worse than that before he was done. She sat down to wait until he had the small fire going in the other room, fighting against the lump of sorrow for her husband that was obstructing her throat. She had to keep up – she couldn't lose the baby … as well as George.

‘That's it burning,' Mick announced, when he came in again. ‘Will you manage to walk through?'

Putting a hand under her elbow, he helped her out of the chair and kept hold of her while she waddled towards the connecting door. His face turned scarlet when her coat flapped back, and, trying to make a joke of it, she said, ‘I'd look like a woman in a brothel if it wasn't for this lump.' He didn't laugh, and she wished that she hadn't said it. ‘Oh, I forgot!' she exclaimed. ‘You'd better put the rubber sheet on the bed first. It's in the press.'

As he turned away, she gasped and doubled up in a pain so excruciating that she thought she would die, a pain that wouldn't stop, a pain that told her the baby was not going to wait a minute longer.

Her screams made Mick rush back to her. ‘Are you all right, Lizann?'

‘I … can't go any farther … put my coat down on the floor.'

Horror-stricken as he realized what she meant to happen, he removed the garment and spread it on the linoleum and, still screaming, she put out her hand for him to help her down on it. ‘I could carry you to your bed,' he muttered, but she shook her head and pulled her nightdress up around her waist. This lack of modesty proved to him beyond doubt that the birth was taking place there and then, and not knowing what else to do, he hunkered down in front of her.

Her previous screams had alarmed him, but the sounds issuing from her now made his hair stand on end – long unearthly howls between the loud animal grunts she gave each time she bore down. Beads of perspiration were pouring down her face, and he whipped out his handkerchief to wipe them away, glad that he could do this at least for her.

Her tortured eyes showed her gratitude before they closed to make one more push, her body heaving as she roared out in agony, and her bare feet were suddenly drenched with the breaking of her waters. Sure that she could do no more by herself, she issued some instructions, the words coming out in guttural, staccato jerks. ‘When you … see the head … ease it out.'

In a daze, Mick slid his hands between her legs and put his fingers round the slimy roundness he could feel. Before he could do anything, however, Lizann made one final, superhuman effort and the baby plopped out in a rush of blood and mucus, the cord twisted around its neck.

Mick leaned over it in an attempt to prevent her from seeing it, but she pushed him away and looked down on the purple face of her dead son.

Chapter Fifteen

Waiting for his sister to come round again, Mick's thoughts returned to the trauma, and marvel, of a human birth. He would never have believed the agony a woman had to go through if he had not taken part in the event itself and what followed. He'd had to force himself to do what was needed and it would stay in his memory for ever. His first instinct, when Lizann fell back unconscious, had been to lift her and carry her through to her bed, but he was faced with a problem – the lifeless infant was still attached to her. Not daring to cut the cord in case he did some damage to her, he had tugged gently but insistently to try and free it. To his surprise, something else came out, and only then did he recall having read somewhere that there was an afterbirth. He had searched for some towels to staunch the blood, and with three stuffed between her thighs took her to the bedroom, his mind set on seeing that she came through her ordeal.

Twenty minutes later she had opened her eyes and looked at him for a few seconds before drifting away again. Afraid that she was giving up he had watched her anxiously over the past hour, but thank God, her breathing remained steady.

When she began to move again he leaned forward and stroked her brow. She was fully conscious this time and stared up at him piteously. ‘Oh, Mick, tell me it's not true … about George.'

He would have given his own life to be able to reassure her, but he had to say, ‘Lizann, I'm sorry, but it's true, right enough.'

For the next two hours he sat on the edge of the bed, holding her as she moaned and wept, tears in his own eyes and a hollowness in his heart that was almost beyond endurance. ‘If only the baby could have lived,' she hiccupped, at last. ‘It was part of George, and now I've nothing left – nobody!'

Completely out of his depth, Mick murmured, ‘You've got me, Lizann … and Mother. She'll always need you.'

‘It's not the same.' She buried her face on his shoulder, and though they'd always been close he was stunned by the depth of his love and compassion for her at that moment.

When she asked him to tell her again how George had been lost, he went over it with her, reluctantly, but more lucidly than he had done the night before. When he finished tears were brimming in her dark, sunken eyes. ‘D'you think he suffered at all?'

‘Don't think about it, Lizann. If you go on like this, you'll never get better.'

‘I don't want to live, any road. What have I got to live for?'

‘Oh, don't say that, little sister.'

The old endearment was intended to comfort her, but succeeded only in making tears flood out again; he watched her hopelessly. What could anybody say that would console her for losing the husband she'd had to fight so hard to get, the husband she'd had for so short a time?

When she recovered she said, ‘I'm sorry.'

‘I understand,' he whispered, taking her hand and stroking it. ‘I know how I'd feel if anything happened to Jenny.'

‘Mick,' she gulped, ‘will you make me some tea, please?'

‘Surely.' He was glad to be asked to do something, for it was feeling so useless that got him down.

When he went into the kitchen he almost tripped over something and took a moment to remember what had been left lying there. Making his way carefully to the gas ring at the fireside, he struck a match and lit the mantle in the lamp at the side of the mantelpiece. When he turned round, a grisly sight met his eyes, even worse than it had been the night before – or maybe it just appeared that way because he was no longer in shock. Looking at the dead infant lying amongst the debris of the birth on the blood-soaked coat, he couldn't help shuddering, and he was about to bundle it all up when it occurred to him that Lizann's doctor should see it first … and take a look at her, too.

When he took through her tea he said, ‘Will you be all right if I go and tell the doctor to come?'

He swept aside her protests that she didn't need a doctor, and being told that she was still with Dr Mathieson, he went out. At quarter past seven on a November morning it was still dark, and the sleety rain made him pull up the collar of his jacket and hold his head down. Turning out of Freuchny Road he nearly bumped into someone coming along Commercial Road. ‘Peter!' he exclaimed, the familiar face going a little way to lighten the black despair that had descended on him.

‘What's up, Mick? You look a bit rattled.'

‘If you knew what I've been through …' He broke off, for he couldn't bring himself to describe it. ‘I'm going to get the doctor for Lizann.'

Peter's eyes darkened with concern. ‘Has something gone wrong? Is her baby coming early?'

‘I haven't time to speak. Can you walk along a bit with me?'

‘I was on my way to work, but … ach well.' Peter turned about. ‘Now, what's up?'

‘What's not up would be more like it,' Mick sighed. ‘You'll not have heard, of course.' He gave an account of what had happened to George and went on, ‘The skipper said it would be best if I broke the news to Lizann, and it's a good thing it was me that went, for when I told her, she lost the baby.'

‘When you were there?'

‘I'd to do the needful, and I haven't got over it yet. She's in an awful state, but the doctor'll have to see the … and I'll ask him to check on her.'

Peter was on the point of saying that he would fetch the doctor when a better idea occurred to him. ‘Would it be any help if I went to her, so she's not on her own?'

‘It would be a godsend, but what about your work?'

‘I was early, and anyway, they'll manage without me for a while.'

‘Thanks, Peter, I'll not forget this.'

Changing direction again, Peter hurried to Freuchny Road and knocked at the door before going in. Averting his eyes from the gruesome mess in the kitchen, he called, ‘It's Peter, Lizann. Can I come in?'

He was in her bedroom before she could answer, and although she pulled the blankets up around her bare shoulders in embarrassment, he was sure she was pleased to see him. ‘I met Mick,' he explained, ‘and I said I'd keep you company till he comes back. I'm sorry, Lizann, really I am … about George … and the baby.'

Forgetting her deshabille now, she held out her arms. ‘Oh, Peter!'

Kneeling by the bed, he held her tightly, her grief his only concern, because he had never wished George Buchan any ill.

‘You don't know how much I loved him,' she sobbed.

‘I think I do.'

‘You're so good to me,' she gulped and lifted her head to kiss his cheek. ‘I don't deserve it after what I did to you.'

‘I'll always be your friend. You know that, don't you?'

‘Thanks, Peter.'

When Mick came back he hesitated in the doorway, frowning at the sight of his newly widowed sister in the arms of the man who had once been her fiancé. Neither of them looked guilty, though, and as Lizann lay back and covered herself she said, ‘I needed somebody, Mick.'

Her brother's face cleared. ‘The doctor said he'll come as soon as he can, and we'd better not keep Peter any longer. He's half an hour late for his work already.'

Standing up, Peter said, ‘Aye, I'll have to go, but is it all right if I come back to see you?'

‘You don't need to worry about me. I'll be fine.'

At the street door, Peter looked apologetically at Mick. ‘Whatever you thought when you came in, you were wrong. She wanted me to hold her, and that's all there was to it.'

Recalling how she had needed him to hold her earlier, Mick said, ‘Aye, I can believe that. I did tell you she was in an awful state.'

‘I still love her, Mick,' Peter admitted, softly.

‘I was some feared for that.'

‘But if I come back, it'll just be as a friend. I promise you that.'

‘She'll need all the friends she can get now, but you've your wife and bairns to think on.'

‘Aye, how could I forget?' Peter turned and walked away.