Winnie of the Waterfront

by Rosie Harris

  ‘Of course I want to hear it! If you’ve got some valid reason why we shouldn’t have children then tell me.’

  He ran a hand through his thick hair until it was standing up on end. ‘To start with, I’m an ex-jailbird,’ he muttered.

  Winnie laughed. ‘So are half the population of Liverpool.’

  ‘That’s only one reason,’ he said dourly.

  ‘And it’s certainly not the main one by the sound of it,’ Winnie replied dryly.

  Sandy picked at one of his fingernails and didn’t answer. There was a more pragmatic reason, but it was one he didn’t want to voice.

  ‘Well, come on,’ she said impatiently, ‘tell me what you’re thinking. Don’t you like kids?’

  He shrugged. ‘They’re all right when they’re someone else’s.’

  ‘Well neither of us have any brothers or sisters so unless we wait for Joy and Gregg to get married and start a family there’s not going to be many of those in our lives.’

  He scowled. ‘We’ve got each other, isn’t that enough for you?’

  ‘No, not really. While you were in prison I realised how very much alone in the world I am. If anything happened to either of us then the other one would be left without a soul to care about them.’

  ‘Or to be responsible for, either,’ he retorted.

  Winnie was silent for a moment, thinking over what he had said.

  ‘Is this to do with responsibility?’ she asked at last. ‘Do you feel pinned down when you know you’re responsible for someone else’s wellbeing? Is that what you don’t like about the idea? Does it mean you feel I’m a burden to you, Sandy?’

  He looked away. ‘No, don’t be daft, that’s got nothing at all to do with it,’ he muttered.

  She noticed the hesitation in his voice and seized on it. ‘Then tell me what it is that’s bothering you. We don’t have to turn this into a guessing game. It seems as if it has something to do with me, so what is the problem?’

  Sandy walked over to the window and stared out unseeingly. ‘I’m shit-scared,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Scared! What about, for heaven’s sake? I’m the one that’s going to have the baby, not you.’

  ‘It’s because you would be having it …’ He swung round and faced her, clenching his hands into balled fists at his side, his face grim. ‘Supposing it was born crippled!’ he blurted out.

  She stared at him, open-mouthed, then she began to laugh almost hysterically.

  ‘Oh, Sandy, what utter nonsense! I wasn’t born like this! I’m only crippled because I had infantile paralysis when I was a little kid. It’s not anything that you pass on to your children.’

  He looked shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry. I’d forgotten about you having polio as a kid. I’ve been thinking all this time that infantile paralysis was something you inherited!’

  She shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. Until I was four years old I could run and jump with the best of them. Anyway, now that’s all cleared up are you going to change your mind about us having a family?’

  He still looked doubtful. ‘What about you, though? Will you be able to go through it?’

  ‘As far as I know it won’t make any difference, but if you’re willing to consider us having a baby then I’ll check up with a doctor first.’

  ‘If he says it’s OK then I’m game if you are.’ He smiled broadly. ‘Having a baby of our own would be great. When I was a kid I dreamed about being grown up and having my own family,’ he enthused. ‘I’d really love it! It will change our lives, mind. Kids do, you know! Everyone says they do. The fellows I met up with in Walton Jail all said they did. They were always passing pictures of their sprogs around. Right little monsters some of them looked, yet they talked about them as though the sun shone out of their little arses,’ he grinned.

  ‘You’ll probably do the same when you have one of your own,’ Winnie teased.

  It took a week for Winnie to make an appointment with a doctor to find out if he thought it was all right for her to have a baby.

  She listened intently, with mounting excitement, as he told her that pregnancy was perfectly feasible and that her condition would in no way affect the baby. He did warn her, however, that the extra weight might impede her mobility. He also agreed that because of her disability there might be minor complications when it came to delivering the baby, but he’d be there to deal with her progress so there was nothing she need be worried about.

  ‘Doctor Richman said that there was no reason at all why I shouldn’t have a perfectly healthy baby,’ she told Sandy jubilantly when she came home.

  He looked at her speculatively, almost as if he didn’t believe her, then he hugged her enthusiastically. ‘We’d better get started then and see what we can do, hadn’t we?’ he teased.

  ‘This very minute?’

  ‘Why not? We’ve got to make up for lost time!’

  Their enthusiasm for the idea never waned, but at first it seemed that their hopes were going to be in vain.

  ‘Perhaps you should give up working at the café and take things a bit more easy,’ Sandy told her.

  ‘Rubbish! What would I do moping at home all day. It only takes me a couple of hours to clean the place from top to bottom. I’d go mad sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting for you to come home.’

  ‘I was pretty sure that’s what you’d say and I’ve thought of the answer to that problem.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We could move to a bigger house.’

  Winnie frowned. ‘What’s wrong with the one we’ve got. It’s handy for the café and it’s in the most respectable part of the Scotty Road area. We’d have to move a lot further afield to find anything better, and then we might end up having to do a lot of travelling to get to work.’

  ‘Not necessarily. I thought perhaps we’d find ourselves a place on the other side.’

  Winnie looked puzzled. ‘Do you mean we should move to New Brighton?’

  Sandy shook his head. ‘No, the ferry to New Brighton doesn’t run often enough, especially when the holiday season is over. I thought that perhaps we could look for a house in Seacombe or Egremont. The boats from Seacombe are every ten minutes and there’s a bus service linking the boats with every part of Wallasey. And on this side it’s only a few yards walk to the café from the landing stage.’

  ‘It sounds a good idea, but can we afford to do that?’ she challenged, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘The rents over there aren’t all that much higher than they are here in Liverpool,’ he pointed out.

  It was certainly something to think about, Winnie agreed. She hoped it would take their mind off the fact that there was still no baby on the way. Perhaps moving away was the right thing to do and would give them a completely fresh start, she decided. The other three men who had been sentenced at the same time as Sandy would be coming out of prison soon and it would be reassuring to know that there was less chance of him meeting up with them again.

  Even though she knew Sandy would not want to have any more dealings with them, while they lived in a street off Scotland Road, which was so close to Paddy’s Market, there was always the chance of bumping into them.

  They could always track Sandy down, of course, either at the café or even across the water, but somehow she didn’t think they’d bother to do that.

  Looking for a place that was suitable, and that both of them liked, would be a great way to spend the rest of the summer, she decided. Sailing across the Mersey to the other side made a very pleasant outing on a fine evening or at the weekend, she thought dreamily.

  Before they were successful in finding somewhere else to live, Winnie discovered she was pregnant.

  ‘All the more reason for us to move as soon as possible so that you can find a doctor over there to take care of you,’ Sandy pointed out.

  Winnie frowned; she hadn’t thought about that. She immediately wondered whether perhaps, after all, it would be better if they stayed where they were for the time being. In Liverpool th
ere were bigger hospitals, and there was always the slight possibility that she might need special attention when the baby was born.

  Sandy was impatient for them to move, but because this was niggling away in the back of her mind Winnie kept delaying matters. It wasn’t too difficult to do this since it was almost the end of October and the summer was over. Early mornings were cold and misty, and looking out across the Mersey was grey and dismal.

  She waited until she was a little over three months pregnant and then, as agreed, she went back to see Dr Richman for a check-up.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Sandy volunteered, ‘then we can ask his opinion about moving. If he thinks it would be better for us to stay in Liverpool until after you’ve had the baby we’ll forget all about doing so until next year.’

  The doctor frowned after he’d examined her. ‘There are no real problems at the moment,’ he told her, ‘but you do realise that your pregnancy may affect your walking. As I told you when you first came to see me, the extra weight as your pregnancy advances will probably make it necessary for you to use your wheelchair most of the time,’ he explained. ‘You see, your balance will be affected, so it will be risky for you to merely walk with sticks, especially if you are feeling tired.’

  ‘Is that the only problem?’ Sandy asked anxiously.

  There was a short silence. Dr Richman removed his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them briskly.

  ‘As a result of her physical handicap, Mrs Coulson may experience considerable discomfort towards the end of her pregnancy. There are also bound to be minor problems in coping with the baby after it is born.’

  ‘What I really meant was is there any danger to my wife’s health, with her being crippled,’ Sandy probed.

  Dr Richman looked thoughtful. ‘There might well be a slight risk to your wife’s health. I’m not saying it is certain, but …’ his voice trailed away.

  Winnie’s heart pounded. She wondered whether that meant he didn’t really know or whether he did know something and was reluctant to tell them.

  ‘Can you tell us more? What do you think we should do?’ Sandy demanded.

  Again there was a silence, a much longer one this time.

  ‘Pregnancy is bound to be a considerable strain for your wife because of her many years of disability and partial immobility,’ Dr Richman prevaricated.

  ‘What about the baby?’ Sandy asked anxiously. ‘Will that be affected in any way?’

  ‘No, I can see no reason to have any concerns about the baby, but, as I have already said, your wife may find it difficult to cope with caring for it if she is confined to a wheelchair afterwards. If you are both worried about this then I might be able to arrange for a termination based on the state of your wife’s health,’ Dr Richman said briskly.

  ‘Get rid of it, do you mean?’ Winnie gasped.

  ‘You should both go away and talk about it,’ he advised, ‘but you must let me have a decision as quickly as possible. There is a time factor. Termination must take place within the next …’

  ‘No, never!’ Winnie almost shouted the words. ‘There isn’t going to be a termination so you can forget all about that,’ she told him furiously. ‘I want this baby whatever happens. I don’t care if I feel ill or uncomfortable. As long as the baby will be all right, no one is going to do anything to stop me. Neither of you are,’ she declared, staring defiantly at Sandy, ‘so don’t even think of trying.’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  THE FACT THAT Winnie was expecting made Sandy all the more determined that they must move to a bigger house.

  ‘We’ll start looking right after Christmas,’ she promised. ‘There’s so many other things to do at the moment.’

  ‘I thought the sooner the better so that you aren’t worried about moving at the last moment?’ Sandy persisted.

  ‘The baby isn’t due until the beginning of June so we’ll have plenty of time in the New Year to find somewhere. Anyway, I thought we agreed to stay where we are until after it’s born because I want Doctor Richman to deliver it?’

  Sandy could see the sense in that. Dr Richman had accepted that Winnie was determined to go ahead with her pregnancy and he had promised to keep a very close eye on her progress.

  ‘There are going to be quite a few problems so she will need your support,’ he told Sandy privately.

  ‘You mean things can go wrong?’

  Dr Richman frowned. ‘I wouldn’t put it like that. There will be some difficulties to face, though. I warned both of you right from the beginning that as Winnie’s pregnancy progresses her weight and increased size may cause problems.’

  ‘Yes, but you only said she wouldn’t be able to manage with just her sticks and that she’d probably have to use her chair some of the time.’

  ‘Quite so! In the late stages of her pregnancy, though, she may have difficulty fitting into her chair. It very much depends on how much her shape changes. You see, she won’t be taking very much exercise so her weight may increase a great deal more than is normal.’

  ‘What can I do to stop that happening?’

  ‘Nothing at all! In fact, I don’t think that you should mention it to her since there is not a lot that can be done about it. Encourage her to lead a normal life and make sure she isn’t worrying about anything.’

  It was him, not Winnie, who was worrying, Sandy thought ruefully. Pleased and excited though he was at the prospect of them having a family, he couldn’t help but be apprehensive about what might happen to Winnie.

  By the end of February Winnie was huge. She still continued working at the café, but Sandy refused to allow her to wheel herself to work each day.

  ‘I’ve told you so many times that if you lose control of your wheelchair as you are coming down Water Street you’ll end up going straight into the Mersey,’ he warned her.

  Winnie knew he was right, and since she knew that it was impossible to propel herself back up Water Street at the end of the day she didn’t argue, but let him push her to and from work.

  She also agreed that if she was feeling tired or unwell she would own up and take time off, and that she would stay at home whenever the weather was very bad.

  By Easter there was no question of Winnie going to work. She could barely move around the house without getting breathless. It had also become such a tight squeeze for her to fit into her wheelchair that she only did so when she had to visit Dr Richman.

  Initially he had asked to see her once a month, but early in March he had suggested that she should visit him every two weeks.

  ‘Remember, you must send for me if you experience any unusual symptoms, Mrs Coulson,’ he told her each time she made a visit.

  At the end of April he told her she wasn’t to even try to come and see him, but that in future he would make house calls.

  Sandy worried more and more about her. Some days he wished she hadn’t gone ahead with having the baby. Perhaps he should have discouraged her more firmly when she’d first mentioned the idea of starting a family, he told himself. It grieved him to see the screwed-up expression on her face as she tried to move around. Not that she ever complained. She bore it all stoically. Sometimes he wished she would openly grumble and let him share her discomfort, so that he could feel free to commiserate with her.

  He had so many things on his mind. They had stopped talking about moving, but he had been putting out feelers, trying to find somewhere suitable for them. He had paid several visits to Seacombe and had one place definitely in mind. He only wished that Winnie was fit enough to come across and see it before he went ahead and confirmed that he would take it.

  Early in June, Winnie was laid low with acute backache. Sandy could see that every movement she made caused her considerable distress, so, without asking her, he contacted Dr Richman.

  Winnie was used to the doctor making house calls so she didn’t attach any importance to his visit.

  Sandy was on tenterhooks when, after a few pertinent questions followed by a brief physical examinat
ion, Dr Richman insisted that she should go into hospital.

  Winnie looked very put out. ‘Must I?’ she protested.

  ‘Right away,’ he told her crisply, in a tone that brooked no argument.

  ‘The baby isn’t due for weeks yet,’ she reminded him.

  ‘I still think it is necessary. I’ll make arrangements. An ambulance will be here in half an hour. Can you be ready by then?’

  ‘She’ll be ready,’ Sandy promised. He tried to hide his concern, assuring Winnie that it was merely a precautionary measure, but he knew instinctively from Dr Richman’s manner that there was far more to it than that.

  Sandy went to the hospital with her and paced the corridor uneasily while she was being examined. It took almost an hour and Dr Richman looked grave as he confronted Sandy afterwards.

  ‘If the baby is to stand any chance of survival it is necessary for your wife to have a Caesarean right away,’ he explained tersely.

  ‘Does she know?’

  Dr Richman nodded.

  ‘So what does she have to say about it?’

  Dr Richman removed his glasses and began polishing them vigorously. ‘She was hoping for a normal delivery, but I’ve explained things to her and she understands that there is no choice.’

  ‘So she’s agreed?’ Sandy probed.

  ‘She has said we must do whatever is necessary to save the baby.’

  ‘And what about Winnie herself? How safe is it for her?’ Sandy persisted.

  ‘Normally the risks would be minimal, but in your wife’s case there is some slight cause for concern,’ Dr Richman admitted reluctantly.

  Sandy ran his hand through his hair. ‘Have you told her that?’

  ‘No, but I think she is fully aware of the situation.’

  ‘It really is impossible for her to give birth in the normal way?’

  ‘Yes, it is. Furthermore, it is imperative, if we are to save her life and that of the baby, that we proceed with a Caesarean immediately.’

  Sandy shrugged resignedly. He felt helpless, but reasoned that Dr Richman knew best. ‘Can I see her first?’