by Maggie Ford
Out there was chaos. In here calm reigned, and an efficiency that was daunting, with everything running on oiled wheels. She couldn’t remember in what order but it seemed every hour of the day something was happening. After visitors, babies would be removed to the nursery, then food came round filling the ward with its warm, overboiled smell. When that got cleared away bedspreads were straightened, pills administered to those who needed them, stitches which most women seemed to have swabbed or taken out, basins brought round, mothers asked to express into them any milk surplus to their baby’s needs. This took place in order to nourish those whose mothers could not produce enough in spite of being shown, often sternly, how to suckle. Breasts were felt and examined for inflammation or infection. A dozen and one other things needed seeing to. The only respite from it came during the time of enforced rest, with the ward curtains closed and the nurses out of sight. Their voices could be heard murmuring in conversation from the office, and distantly, the fractious crying from the direction of the nursery which caused the mothers to lie worrying and not resting at all, tense and waiting only for their babies to be brought back for their feed. After that they would be put into cribs beside the mother.
Few doctors were seen but at some time during the day crumpled sheets would be restraightened and the ward tidied in a surge of energy ready for the matron’s inspection. It had occurred as Brenda had waited for her labour pains to start again, though yesterday morning she had been too busy in the labour ward to care if the matron had done her rounds or not.
In preparation for the woman’s appearance, mothers were ordered to ‘sit up straight’ as if they were staff instead of patients and despite the fierce prickle of catgut-sharp stitches sticking out from the most tender parts. Bed linen stretched like a board across the abdomen revealed not a crease, not a pillow looked out of place, not one item of a patient’s belongings was in sight. It was like being in the army, as if the rest of the world pulsed to a different beat, or there was no world outside. A sigh of relief issued forth as the dignitary departed after having asked a brief question or so of a few of the mothers, giving each a nod and a distant smile before moving on to the next quarry.
She had bestowed her smile on Brenda. ‘Still waiting, I see,’ she had remarked and inclining her head graciously, had moved on, leaving Brenda feeling almost guilty that she hadn’t produced one twinge of pain to order.
‘I’ve been ’ere two days waiting for mine,’ said a woman in a hospital gown who had wandered up the ward towards her, her abdomen so swollen that Brenda wondered if she might not be having twins. ‘It feels like two weeks in this place. I don’t half miss me own home.’
‘I miss mine too,’ Brenda said to the girl, whose name was Mavis. Mavis had nodded bleakly, arms folded over her bulging stomach.
She knew how Mavis felt. As they fell into conversation about babies and labour and how they would cope with them when they did get home, Brenda thought of her flat, no longer three poky rooms to her mind, but a haven of peace, seclusion, comfort. There was no comfort here whatsoever – just white efficiency.
‘I’ve got to put up with this for a fortnight,’ she moaned to Harry. But he was thinking deeply.
‘We’ve thought up so many names, Bren, I just can’t fink of a single one now.’
Yes, names. She brought her thoughts back to the question. ‘D’you remember we once said Gerald if it was a boy and I said Adele if it was a girl?’ She’d read the name in a book and had liked it. ‘Let’s call ’er Adele.’
He looked astonished. ‘But that was just one you thought up when we was ’avin a bit of fun. She ought ter be named after someone in the family. P’raps after me mum, or yours. They’d sort of expect it.’
Brenda felt a ripple of annoyance run through her. ‘Why should they expect it? She’s ours, not theirs. I don’t want to call her after anyone. And it’d end up upsetting one or the other.’
‘She could ’ave both names, after each of ’em.’
‘And one get upset because she’d got the other one’s as a first name? Anyway, they’ve both got old-fashioned names. I want her to ’ave a modern name so’s she’ll feel comfortable with it all her life.’
‘Then give ’er your name,’ he said mildly, his easy going nature ready on this special occasion to fall in with her wishes. ‘It’s a nice one.’
It was a wonderful compliment, proving how much he thought of her to have said that, though it had probably been said in all innocence, but she shook her head.
‘I’d like to call her Adele. It’s different. Harry – she’ll love the name. Adele Hutton. Adele Eleanor Hutton. How about that?’
For a moment Harry looked at her, sure she’d lost her senses, but her eyes were all shiny with fervour and she was gazing up at him so happy and so trusting. He couldn’t upset her in her present condition. His determination to honour his mother with his daughter’s name wilted. But his dilemma only grew.
Mum had been hinting about it for months. ‘Let’s ’ope it’s a girl, eh? And she could even ’ave my name.’
Names! His child, the first girl in the family, should be named after her. His oldest sister had two boys, one named after Harry’s father, Sidney, the other after his own dad, Charlie. His other sister had given her boy Dad’s other name, Robert. His brother Bob had no children as yet; they had lost their first two months before it was due, a girl as it had turned out – a sad, sad business which Mum had never really got over.
She’d told Harry a long time ago how she had been praying his first child would be a girl. Now he’d made her happy, and now he must go and tell her about Brenda’s choice. Bloody stupid name, Adele. Eleanor was even worse. Yet how could he face a great big argument with Brenda at this moment? She would get upset and argue. Better to disappoint Mum than have Brenda upset, so soon after having the baby and him getting all het up as well.
He’d be better biding his time. After all, they weren’t going to christen the baby in the next couple of seconds. It could be delayed for weeks. He might get Brenda round to his way of thinking eventually. Meantime he would say nothing to Mum about the name.
It was good to have her home again. Sick of hospital and saying she was feeling absolutely fine, she had signed herself off against all warning that the hospital would take no blame if she had to be brought back. But Brenda was blooming. And so was the baby. The matter of the name had so far been neatly sidestepped even though she was speaking of her as our little Adele.
‘Yer might of changed yer mind time we get ter the christenin’,’ he’d pointed out tentatively, but didn’t pursue it after a look from her. He had held his tongue a while longer, just glad to have her back home.
Apart from having a baby waking up in the middle of the night which wasn’t half as bad as they had both imagined – Adele seemed a contented baby if ever there was one – he was only too relieved to get back to normal domestic life. Much of those ten days without Brenda he had spent at his mum and dad’s. Mum had been getting all his meals, and he hardly needed to go home but for a change of underwear, since she did his washing too. Mum had been so good, so self-sacrificing, and in answer to her questions as to what name they had thought of, her tone full of expectancy, he hadn’t found it in his heart to hurt her. He’d hedged and said it was a bit too early to decide.
‘You must’ve both ’ad time by now,’ she’d come back at him, once more putting him at a disadvantage.
Everyone around him putting him at a disadvantage. Everyone on his back. All because of a bloody name! He was too easy, that was the matter, at least with women. At work, with his mates in the pub, and especially at the drill hall, in uniform now even if it was still ill-fitting, he was his own man, holding his own views. It was great being a soldier: Brenda worried for his safety, missed him when he left her alone, now even more so with a baby. She wasn’t angry – the thought of a few extra quid made the difference, because she still clung to that home of her dreams, and of course one day he, the provider,
would get it for her. And having the baby had put those ideas of her doing that hairdressing lark to help bring in an extra few bob and making him feel not worth his salt, all in the past. Life was bliss, with him master of his own house.
There had only been one row – well, hardly a row – even though she had rounded on him like he’d committed a crime.
She’d hardly set foot in the house, holding their new baby. He had been carrying her suitcase and helping her up the stairs. In the front room she’d tenderly laid the baby down in the crib he’d bought, had gazed around then returned to the kitchen, surprised to see everything so tidy. He hadn’t needed to tidy. He hadn’t been there for it to need doing. But dust lying thick and undisturbed was proof enough that he hadn’t been there. So was the oven. As she bent to open it, there, in the centre, sat an enamel pie dish full of very dead rice pudding with fluffy green and black mould covering its entire surface.
‘What’s this?’ She had withdrawn it and had held it under his nose like the prime exhibit in a criminal court.
‘Harry! Didn’t you notice it there? What’ve yer been eating these ten days? Surely you must of seen it in there.’
‘I ain’t bin ’ere,’ he mumbled abjectly, inwardly seething. After everything he was trying to do for her, for her to do her nut over a bit of bloody rice pudding left in an oven!
‘Look at it!’ She had grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer and with it was frantically digging the solid mass from its dish into the sink.
She was livid and it was so stupid. It was only a rice pudding. What was there to get upset about over one perishing rice pudding? There were more serious things happening in the world. But he didn’t say so. It would only have made things worse.
‘Where’ve you been then, if you ain’t been here?’ she’d shouted at him.
‘Me mum’s mostly,’ he’d mumbled.
She’d gone silent and so he had enlarged on the explanation. ‘She offered to get me dinners for me, save me doin’ it.’
‘And where did yer sleep?’
‘Mostly there.’
‘And I suppose she did yer washin’ too.’
He nodded glumly. But she’d calmed down, leaving the offending rice pudding in the sink and going back to her baby. Having gone through all that giving birth it was natural she’d be a bit on edge. It probably wouldn’t be her only outburst, but on the whole life seemed set to run smooth as silk.
‘How’m I going ter manage, you being away?’ she was bleating at him.
These last few weeks she’d become unexpectedly tearful. It wasn’t like Brenda. Not from the very first time of meeting her had she ever resorted to tears at the slightest provocation. But now . . .
‘It’s only a weekend, Brenda. I don’t want ter go. I just have ter.’
In actual fact he couldn’t wait. To be under canvas, a real soldier for once with all the mates he’d made at the drill hall. It was an adventure, roughing it, manoeuvres, all that mock fighting, swinging like Tarzan from ropes over ponds, climbing over ten-foot-high wood frames and pounding along pathways, rifle in hand. Wonderful!
‘I’ll be back by Sunday night. Have ter be in work on Monday,’ he encouraged her with a big display of making an effort to be cheery for her sake and grinning at himself for the cunning liar he was.
‘I know.’ She wasn’t really crying, just bleating a bit. ‘I’m just being stupid. It’s being left here on me own ter cope with the baby.’
‘Yer get on orright copin’ with it,’ he told her. ‘An’ I can’t just say to ’em, me wife can’t ’andle our kid on ’er own, so can I be excused, now can I? I’m in the Terries. I’m a soldier.’
Army regulars referred to them as part-time soldiers but he must nevertheless comply with TA regulations. ‘In any case they let me off the previous training course on compassionate grounds when yer ’ad the baby, so I do ’ave ter go, luv. Couldn’t yer spend the weekend at yer mum’s?’
Brenda nodded and looked up from breastfeeding little Adele. She had got her way with the name, and the christening would take place in two weeks’ time. But it had had its repercussions. His parents had come to see the baby twice in four weeks, and when they’d gone round there, though his dad was hearty enough, his mother had remained distant and frigid, not once referring to her hopes to have had her own name included in those bestowed on the little girl. That in itself showed how hurt she had been. But wasn’t he hurt too, her behaving like that?
No matter how Mum felt about it, this was his baby and her first granddaughter. She could have been a bit more generous. So he’d come to agree with Brenda, and looking at his daughter’s round, blue eyes, the alert way they followed his moving finger, and that funny little quirky smile which Brenda said was wind, to have named her Irene wouldn’t have fitted her at all. She was an Adele if there ever was one. Mum would come round in time.
‘I suppose I could spend Saturday with me mum,’ Brenda replied to his suggestion.
He felt heartened. ‘Yer should stay the night, Bren. Yer can’t come back ’ome in the dark with a baby. If yer stay there, I can bring yer back on Sunday night.’
‘An’ where do I sleep? There’s no room there, and all the baby’s stuff is ’ere. On second thoughts, Harry, I’ll be all right.’ She had brightened considerably. ‘I’ve got ter get used ter being on me own,’ she added with such a change of mood that Harry was quite startled, if relieved.
A thought had come into Brenda’s mind. She’d have all Friday night and all Saturday to herself, even Sunday up until eight o’clock. What if she invited Mrs Copeland to come over and have her hair cut and set? She wouldn’t charge her. It would be a way of saying thanks for her friendship and her help when the baby had begun to come. Not only that, it would be practice, getting her hand in again. And when any time Harry was away for weekends, or even off on Friday nights for two hours at his drill hall, she could start taking in the odd person who wanted their hair done for half the price the hairdressers asked. Her only outlay would be a decent pair of scissors, and some setting lotion. She already had her own hair tongs, which could be heated over the gas ring of the stove. Hair could be washed in the sink, and the customers gone well before Harry came home. If he noticed wet towels hanging about, she could say she’d had her usual Friday night bath in front of the fire. He need never know and she would have some money to put away in her post office savings for the day they could rent their nice new house. The prospect filled her with eagerness and she found herself hardly able to wait for him to go off on his weekend.
Practice on Joan Copeland’s harsh grey hair went marvellously, as well as providing a sociable Saturday afternoon after morning shopping. Joan promised to send a friend round on Sunday morning to be styled, this one of course for a two-shilling fee. After all, Joan’s hairdo was done out of friendship, but she wasn’t prepared to become a charity organisation. The two bob in her savings – ten of them to a quid – would soon mount up. Trouble was it could never be a regular thing, with Harry only away on the odd weekend. But she could give a regular Friday-night service, and an expert trim at one and six wasn’t to be sneezed at.
‘It looks really nice,’ said Joan, admiring the results of the trim and a touch with the tongs in the little mirror on the kitchen wall. ‘Yer’ve done it really nice. Better’n any proper hairdresser.’
Brenda didn’t argue that she had been a proper hairdresser, just not allowed to carry on her trade now she was married with a baby. Joan’s fifty-year-old head of iron-grey hair had taken some skill to make look bright and fluffy, and it was good to have it appreciated.
‘Makes me look ten years younger,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell me friend. She was goin’ ter book an ’airdo at the ’airdresser’s during the week. But she’ll be round ’ere like a shot when she sees it ternight. ’er and ’er ’usband is coming to us ternight. We play whist, yer know, on a Sat’day night, the four of us. Wouldn’t miss it. One Sat’day at ’er place and one Sat’day at mine. I’ll tell �
�er. She’ll be ’ere. What time?’
‘Say eleven?’
‘Luv’ly!’
So Brenda sat down to her midday break, on this occasion keeping the main Sunday dinner aside until Harry came home. Now she was two shillings better off and already dreaming of that little house in a year or two. Of course, he wouldn’t be angry when finally she produced her nest egg for him to put towards the rent until he found a decent local job in whatever council estate they’d decide upon. Meantime this would be her secret and no harm done.
Chapter Eight
Harry was worried. The words ‘peace in our time’ seemed no longer to be holding much weight with Germany launching her first aircraft carrier and reported to be planning to double her U-boat fleet. In response, the British Navy was said to be undergoing a huge reorganisation to boost its fire power.
Everywhere you looked preparations were being made, especially them lorries delivering air-raid shelters. His mum’s road had been told they would get theirs delivered around the end of February which was next week. Anderson shelters, they were called.
‘Dunno ’ow they’re goin’ ter fit in these bloody tiny patches of back gardens,’ his dad said. ‘No room ter swing a bleedin’ cat let alone one of them things.’ His sorrow was that his precious flower border would have to go, at the moment bare but for the first green peeping from daffodil bulbs that must have been in ten years or more. Even so Mum had expressed her relief that they’d have something to shelter in if bombs did fall.
‘Which they won’t,’ she’d added. ‘’Cos we ain’t goin’ ter ’ave no war. Chamberlain will stop it, like last year. I believe in ’im one ’undred per cent.’
A lot of people did. Harry hadn’t their faith. And Mum was looking forward to delivery of her Anderson like it was a bloody birthday present.
