Mill Town Girl

by Audrey Reimann

  She smiled reassuringly at Pam. ‘There is something wrong. But I know I’m not pregnant. And I’ll buy an iron tonic tonight from Carter’s, on my way home, if that’s what’s making me tired.’

  She had bought the tonic and certainly the tiredness seemed to be lessening but now, on her way to Pamela’s, Rose felt nervous. The notion of pregnancy was crazy. But she had been feeling awful this summer. She had put it down to the way she was living. She felt that she was the only person who was steadfast in believing Alan would return and this made it impossible to talk to anyone about him.

  Then there was the food. She had always minded what she ate and now, despite the uneasy truce that existed between them, despite her best efforts, she was unable to enjoy Aunt Carrie’s offerings. Their meals were short on protein: there was not enough meat, few eggs and tiny portions of bacon and cheese to go round. She missed these things. She even craved them and felt guilty and selfish about her greed.

  And, though she had no wish to fill herself up with them, she was forced, to appease the raging appetite she’d developed, to eat a lot more bread and marge and potatoes. The starchy foods were making her bloated. For the first time in her life she had a thick middle. There was a bulge, which started right under her sternum and ended below her waist. It was in quite the wrong place for a pregnancy whose increase surely would start lower down and work its way up.

  Because of it, to hide the fat, she sneaked upstairs one Sunday afternoon when Aunt Carrie was out and stole two old pairs of her corsets from a box in the attic. She wore them all the time, putting them on when her sisters left the bedroom. She had to breathe in as far as she could and fasten the rigid line of hooks, which went from just below her armpit to the top of her leg. When the hooks were done she’d start at the top again, lacing them tight until she tied them in a knot and tucked the ends under the stiff pink canvas.

  They did the trick. She looked straight-up-and-down when she’d finished corseting and flattening herself. She could get into all her clothes – as long as she left the waistband buttons undone.

  But the corsets – the pressure of them – gave her heartburn. It was awful – a great rush of acid came to the back of her throat and gave her a hideously full and painful feeling right across her diaphragm and up into her chest.

  Aunt Carrie, compensating for her earlier tempers perhaps, was most solicitous. She told her to take a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda in warm water before going to bed. The burning went instantly. She would dash upstairs immediately she had taken it so that she could belch away in the privacy of the bedroom without comment.

  Then she’d take off her tight brassiere and the corsets and have to suffer rumbling and jumping of wind in her abdomen all night long until she strapped herself into the corsets again the next morning.

  The train was approaching a station. Rose looked quickly at it as they went. The name boards had been painted over to confuse the enemy when they invaded, but she had recognised Levenshulme. They were nearly there.

  There were crowds everywhere and long queues. At last she got on to the tram that would take her to Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Slowly they rattled along the centre of the Barlow Moor Road, past the cemetery. Rose looked at her watch. It was almost half-past two before she arrived at Pamela’s. Pamela was waiting at the tram stop.

  ‘I’d nearly given you up,’ Pamela said.

  ‘It’s dreadful, Pam. The trains are packed.’ She slipped her arm through Pamela’s as they turned off the straight road into a quiet tree-lined avenue.

  ‘I know. I use them every day,’ Pamela said. ‘Here we are.’ The house, hidden from the road behind a tall hedge, was imposing and Rose felt a quick shudder of fright.

  ‘I’ll take you round to the consulting room,’ Pamela said as she went ahead down the gravel path at the side of the house.

  Rose followed her to a brown door over which was a white china globe bearing the word ‘Surgery’ in black letters. On the door was a brass plate with Pam’s father’s name and a string of letters. All at once she wished she hadn’t come.

  ‘Go through to the waiting room,’ Pamela was saying. ‘Then Daddy will show you the way into the house. He has to go back to the hospital afterwards. You needn’t feel embarrassed.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Rose said quickly. ‘I don’t mind.’ She went inside. She could hear voices behind the door marked ‘Surgery’ but was the only person in the waiting room. She tugged down the hem of her skirt under her gabardine; the navy-blue skirt had shrunk and kept riding up. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands to stop them from shaking and picked up a copy of Woman and Home. Before she could open it she heard the outside door close and footsteps cross the surgery floor. The door opened.

  ‘Miss Kennedy?’

  Pamela’s father ushered her into a consulting room that smelt of wax polish and Dettol. ‘Come in. Sit down, Rose,’ he said. ‘Pamela talks a lot about you.’

  He nodded to a nurse in a starched apron who disappeared behind a curtained area at the far end of the big room.

  Rose felt more at ease. He was charming. He had greyish fair hair and observant grey eyes but overall he had an easy manner that made her want to confide in him. He asked her all about her symptoms, nodding and smiling as she described them – the sickening sense she had when she got out of bed, as if she were descending in a lift – the feeling that her skin was stretching, pulling tight across her stomach, almost as if it were being pushed outwards.

  He was prompting all these answers, she knew, beginning every question with, ‘Do you ever feel that . . . ?’

  For some unaccountable reason she wanted to laugh at herself. She felt her mouth creasing at the corners as she answered him. He was nodding sagely at her replies.

  ‘Have you noticed a change in your breasts?’ he asked.

  Rose blushed at the mention of breasts though she’d answered his other questions without embarrassment. ‘They are – they seem to be growing,’ she said. ‘And they prickle and go all pins-and-needly.’

  He nodded. ‘And movement? Have you felt any movements?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, relieved that he had asked. ‘Every night in bed. It’s wind – from the bicarbonate of soda and the soda-mints.’

  He smiled again. ‘I’d like to examine you,’ he said.

  The nurse came from behind the curtains and led her into the cubicle. ‘Take your things off,’ she said kindly, to put her at her ease. ‘And put on this gown.’

  Rose felt idiotic now. She brushed aside the nurse’s offer of help as she unlaced the pink corsets. ‘I can do it,’ she gasped, her fumbling fingers tugging at the strings to release them. There were red marks around her body from their tightness.

  At the sight of the marks the nurse raised her eyebrows and said, ‘They must hurt you.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Rose said quickly. ‘Not at all.’ She slipped on the green gown and climbed up on to the leather couch where she lay, shaking, all desire to laugh gone. What was going to happen? What would he find? A growth?

  Doctor Tannenbaum came in and washed his hands solemnly at the washbasin. Then he came towards the table and nodded to the nurse to pull down the sheet.

  Then, standing over her, he looked over the top of his glasses into her face, one hand resting on the bulge that had been her waistline. He seemed to be fighting back a smile. ‘There is no need for me to examine you internally,’ he said.

  ‘There’s not?’

  He patted her gently and allowed his amusement to show. His eyes were twinkling in his intelligent face. ‘I think you must discard the corsets, my dear,’ he said. ‘You are in your sixth month of pregnancy and everything seems perfectly normal.’

  Tears came to her eyes but they were tears of relief and illogical, incongruous happiness. The other, sensible side of herself signalled caution, problems to be solved, arrangements to be made. But these were practicalities. She was going to have a baby. Her and Alan’s baby.

  She sat up on t
he couch, a great, happy smile illuminating her face as the tears streamed down it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m so – so glad.’

  ‘You will have to think about everything,’ he said, ‘most carefully. I understand that the baby’s father is missing?’

  ‘He’s not dead,’ Rose said. ‘Nobody believes me, but I know.’

  He stood, hands behind his back, leaning against the wall as she was helped to her feet by the nurse. There was a look of pleasure on his face and Rose knew that he delighted in telling a woman what to him would always be the good news of their condition. Alan will be just like that one day, she told herself as she smiled back at him.

  ‘He is coming back,’ she said with utter conviction. ‘And he will be thrilled to find he has a child.’ Then she gathered the gown around herself and moved to the screened area of the cubicle to dress.

  Back at the desk, dressed, a few minutes later, Rose said. ‘I can’t possibly have the baby at home. I daren’t tell my aunt.’

  ‘Can you tell your church? You are . . . ?’

  ‘Roman Catholic,’ Rose answered. ‘Yes. I could see Father Church and go to their Home but I think I’d rather . . .’

  ‘Would you like me to make arrangements for you to go to a Mother and Baby Home? There is one in Manchester. You can be admitted as soon as you like. You will be delivered there and can stay for three months afterwards.’

  He was serious now. ‘You will be able to decide what to do afterwards.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought – hadn’t considered.’ Rose said. ‘I will have to think. When is it due? Can you tell me?’

  ‘I can tell you exactly when it should arrive, Rose. You were quite specific about the date of conception. Your baby is due . . .’

  ‘When?’ She was all eagerness now.

  ‘The end of January. I’d say the twenty-ninth but it could be a week or so either side. Babies seldom come on the appointed day.’ The smile left his face. ‘Will you want to have the baby adopted?’ he said. ‘Or looked after – put into a Home until you and your young man can make a home together?’

  ‘I will come here. To Manchester. I can’t have the baby in Macclesfield. I can’t begin to work out all the details, not yet. But I have a little money. I can look for a house in Manchester and live here with the baby until Alan gets back.’

  He stood up now. ‘I will make all the arrangements for you. Tell Pamela when you want to move in. And try to make it soon. I would advise you to leave it no later than the middle of December.’

  He took her into the house, where Pamela was waiting for her in a large, elegant drawing room that was three times the size of any room Rose had seen.

  ‘Pam,’ she said, ‘it’s true. I am having a baby.’ She heard the door close behind Pamela’s father. ‘Oh, I’m so glad I’m having a baby. You will help me to keep it a secret won’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Pamela came towards her, hands outstretched. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you.’

  Then she found herself sitting, laughing one moment, worried the next, listening to Pamela who, all at once, seemed to know all there was to know about babies, confinements and unmarried motherhood.

  And all the time, inside, she was bursting with joy. She would continue to conceal her state. Aunt Carrie would not be able to hold her head up in Macclesfield if any one of them, but more so if she, Rose, brought disgrace on to the family.

  Feeling as she did now she wondered afresh at her aunt’s decision to relinquish her child – herself. Her own delight, secret and wrong though it might be, made Aunt Carrie’s actions even harder to comprehend. She wanted to run and shout it from the rooftops, ‘I am going to have a baby. And I’m glad! Glad!’

  On the journey home she sat in the dark compartment that was palely lit by a bluish light from the overhead bulb. The blinds were drawn and the travellers, as on the outward journey, were cramped together, uncommunicative and cold. It gave her time to think, to decide how she would get through the next few weeks. She needed to conceal her shape until the middle of December when she would leave Macclesfield.

  Her prayers were answered when, on the following Friday, she and Pamela were detailed to fill in at a village branch of the Regional Bank, some twenty miles from Macclesfield. Experienced staff were needed since two men had been called up. There would be no possibility of their getting home for the first month but there was accommodation in the bank house next door where they would be looked after by the caretaker.

  Aunt Carrie was not pleased but there was no arguing with orders from head office. Nobody would dream of questioning orders in wartime. Every pair of hands was needed.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It was the middle of December and Rose had been back at the Temperance Hotel for a week. Carrie did not know what to make of it. She, Rose, had arrived last Sunday night, when she had just come in from church. It had been unexpected. Only the day before there had been a letter from her to say that she would not be back until Christmas.

  Carrie had been delighted when she came in and found her, sitting by the fire in the kitchen. ‘What a lovely surprise,’ she said. ‘I thought you were staying on in Derbyshire for another fortnight.’

  Rose pulled her big coat round herself and stretched her hands towards the blaze. ‘I’ve left,’ she said. ‘I’m not going back.’ She sounded tired out yet she was rosy-cheeked and sort of filled-out looking.

  ‘Why?’ Carrie asked. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘I’m not well. I’ve been in bed for the last week.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve had enteritis.’

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask mine to come and see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t. I’m sure I’ll be all right, if I can just – just have a week in bed.’ She stood up and walked towards the door.

  It looked as if she’d put weight on. The tweed coat she was wearing used to be big on her and now it was stretched tightly across hips that had grown much wider. Rose had always been slim yet here she was, with a behind on her like Brenda Gallimore’s. Her legs too, from being long and slender were now chunky-looking, heavy, as if the ankles were swollen. Enteritis generally made you lose weight. It looked more like that thing – dropsy – that made the body hold water.

  ‘You ought to see a doctor, love,’ she said.

  ‘Let me have a good night’s rest, Aunt Carrie, will you?’

  She was so glad to have her back that Carrie would have agreed to anything. She had missed her so. And Vivienne was not herself, without Rose. Anyway, she thought as Rose went out of the room, she herself was as good as a doctor. She’d go up to Frank Carter’s in the morning and get one of his tonics.

  And Rose hadn’t been ill, not really ill. She had taken to her bed. It must have been exhaustion, for the poor girl slept and ate for the first four days. By Friday she was much better, but prickly and easily moved to tears, as when Carrie had suggested that she get dressed and come downstairs for an hour or two.

  Carrie didn’t mind carrying trays upstairs for her, nor did she object to lighting a fire in the bedroom and trying to cosset her a little. It would have been better if Rose had been a bit more appreciative or even if she had looked pleased at all the love and care that was being lavished upon her.

  Her friend Pamela, who had returned to the Macclesfield office of the bank at the same time as Rose had come home, came round to visit her most evenings after work and Rose talked to her all right. Carrie could hear them, talking animatedly, upstairs in the bedroom.

  Now, a week later, Carrie was at the chapel again. There were fifty children in the Sunday school hall this afternoon, the fifteenth of December.

  Carrie sat, adding new names to the register, on the little raised platform. From here she could see them all and give Cecil a nod when it was time to play for the collection. She pushed back the wristband of her blue wool blouse
and glanced at her watch. Half-past three. She’d better tell the teachers to settle the children who were moving chairs noisily across unpolished boards.

  She stood, clapped her hands and said, ‘Put the chairs in rows, children. Put them how you found them. Then stand in line.’

  She nodded to Cecil who went to the piano, adjusted his trousers and the piano stool and sat, looking at her. Waiting. Many of the children were here for the first time. Every day since the terrible blitzes on Coventry, families and children had poured into Macclesfield. Carrie divided the newcomers into groups and set them to crayoning pictures of shepherds and sheep. The poor little souls. Some of them had never seen a sheep. One little girl asked what they were. The symbolic meaning was lost on them.

  They were ready now. She went to the cupboard, opened the door and took out the collection jar – a big, glass Kilner with a wide slit in the lid. She nodded to Cecil to start and raised her hand, signalling to the children to begin their song.

  ‘Hear the pen-nies drop-ping . . .’ She wished Cecil could play it a bit faster. It only sounded right when played cheerfully. She moved along the row of children, passing the jar. Some of them looked as if they could do with a good hot dinner – and a bath. Half of them were dressed in cast-offs, many had patches of impetigo on their cheeks and hands. Some of the children didn’t even have a ha’penny, never mind a penny to drop in the jar.

  ‘Lis-ten while they fall . . .’ It made you wish you could do more, seeing these poor little mites. And there were hundreds more being bombed out of their homes in the cities. How much more can Britain take? We’re fighting alone now. The whole of Europe’s been overrun. And Cecil did it to annoy her, played slowly. He’d offered to play for them after Mrs Gregson died but she knew it was just another excuse to be with her.

  ‘Ev-ery one for Je-sus . . .’ Come on Cecil! Speed it up! He was going to drag it out since it was such a short tune. She wanted to be back before four o’clock. Vivienne had been in a bit of a state at dinner-time. She kept coming over all tempestuous lately. She’d been harder to manage since Mary had gone.