by Gray, Millie
The curtains were now drawn and Kitty had added some railway sleeper logs to the fire. Sitting down she pulled Rosebud on to her knee before she said, ‘Right, we’re all blacked out and these “found” logs might stink but they’ll at least keep us warm. Right, Laura, it’s time to dish the dirt.’
‘Well,’ Laura began slowly as she savoured the moment, ‘it seems, no it is a fact, that a young lassie was going round the doors in Craigmillar asking questions about what was going on in the munitions factory.’
‘Scots lassie?’
‘No, she had an Irish accent or so they say. But back to the story … Anyway one of the things they are good at in Craigmillar is sticking the gither. You know, no rising to the bait and certainly no giving anybody sneaking about any information. Anyway, one old ex-army smart alec phoned the polis and the lassie was arrested.’
‘Arrested for asking questions?’
‘Aye, turns out she was a German spy – and you know how we’ve been told that loose talk costs lives. Anyway she’s gone and she’ll never be heard of again because they put her up against a wall and shot her.’
‘Shot her – without her being found guilty at a trial?’
‘Seems that if you’re a spy you’re not entitled to appear in court and have your say. Mind you they didn’t shoot her quick enough because she obviously got some news about the factory through to the Germans.’
‘She did?’
‘Kitty, surely you’ve worked it out that that was why they pasted Craigmillar last week. Folk were killed and injured.’ Laura sighed before adding, ‘But thank God they missed the factory so it’s on with the war work.’
Before Laura could expand on her story any further, Connie came in. ‘Any chance of a cuppa?’
‘Aye,’ replied Kitty, going through to the kitchen.
‘And I don’t suppose you’ve any of your homemade shortbread left?’
‘Connie, get real. I know you gave me half a tin of lost New Zealand butter to make it but you’re forgetting I have two brothers and a dad that are forever famished and …’
‘It was delicious,’ Connie purred. ‘Look, as I’ve still got some butter left, tell me again how you made it.’
‘I just went into Brown’s the victuals dealer and asked him for two pounds of his shortbread mixture. He makes it up himself with plain flour and something else like semolina or cornflour, then all you have to do is just rub in some strayed butter, stir in some mislaid sugar and bake it in a slow oven.’
‘See this war and all the rationing … it’s no joke,’ Connie huffed. ‘Three days ago I queued for two hours at the offal butcher in the Kirkgate and by the time I got served there was no liver left. Had to settle for a sheep’s tongue, so I did.’
‘Aye, Connie, but you do so much better than most of us.’
‘What makes you think that, Kitty?’ Connie snorted before lighting up a cigarette.
‘Well it’s a funny week that you don’t get a share of something that has miraculously fallen, once again, off the back of a lorry in the docks.’
Connie was about to respond that Kitty also did very well out of the docks as she always shared the spoils with her. However, she decided not to have a confrontation with Kitty so she changed the subject and cooed, ‘But things might be looking up with the Americans joining the war. Surely they will be able to help us sort out these heartless German submarines.’ She shrugged. ‘If not we’ll be starved into surrendering.’
‘Here, Connie,’ Laura began, ‘see before you came in we were just saying that when the Americans come they will be loaded up with …’
Before the ladies’ conversation could continue, Jack, David and Johnny came into the room.
‘Kitty, I’m starving, what’s for tea?’
‘Davy, you’re always hungry,’ replied Kitty.
‘So he is,’ Jack laughed as he ruffled Davy’s hair.
‘Well if you have to know it’s the hough shop’s ham ribs. Delicious they are and you’re getting big dollops of mashed tatties and savoy cabbage to go with them.’
By now Connie had sidled over to Johnny. ‘Sobered up, are you?’ she crooned.
‘What do you mean, sobered up? I never drink myself under the table.’
‘That right? Well let me tell you, you might not have landed under the table on Hogmanay, but you did land—’
Before Connie could go on Johnny slapped his hand over her mouth and he hoarsely whispered in her ear, ‘Don’t say another word, Connie. What I mean is don’t push your luck.’
Whilst Kitty busied herself with dishing up the tea, Johnny escorted Connie to the front door and as he closed it firmly on her his thoughts went back to Hogmanay.
Grudgingly he admitted he had been what you would call ‘merry’ when he came home from the Learig pub on Hogmanay, but he was in no way out of control. It was only when Connie offered him what he thought was a glass of sherry that things started to go … He swallowed hard. He really didn’t want to think about what happened after he had quickly downed three double twelve-year-old whiskies – and contraband whisky at that, which, he later learned, was part of a consignment that should have ended up in America. How it somehow managed to get itself lost in Leith Docks would always be a mystery to him. And what was even more confusing was how that bottle he had imbibed from, and two others, ended up under Connie’s sink.
Reluctantly he recalled that he had just swallowed the third glass and was looking for a fourth when Connie had said that if he would chum her across the landing and into her house she would fish out another bottle for him that was bunked behind the soap powder.
What happened next he was not sure about but what he did know was he had passed out and on awakening in the early hours of the morning, not only was he in Connie’s double bed, but so was she! Johnny gulped again as he admitted that it was not being in Connie’s bed that had unnerved him, because he knew he was so drunk he was incapable of doing anything. The real problem was that he remembered just how much he wanted to lie there and cuddle in like he used to do with Sandra. The bed felt so cosy and it smelled so fresh and as he looked over at Connie he began to see her in a different light … She really was quite lovely and, as her hair tumbled around her head, he had a desire to stroke it, to bury his nose in it, to allow the scent of her shampoo to intoxicate him. These desires were quickly extinguished when a sense of guilt and indecency overwhelmed him and he slunk out of the bed, picked up his trousers and shirt off the floor and fled back to his own home. He had just got safely back into his own house when he accepted that the deathbed promises he had made to Sandra were starting to …
Johnny was rudely brought back into the present when Kitty screamed. ‘Dad, Dad, listen, there’s the siren and I can hear the drone of the planes already. Quick, you grab Rosebud and I’ll follow you once I’ve filled the Thermos flask for you and made up a jam piece for her.’
Although dazed, Johnny began to organise things. Firstly he called out to Davy and Jack to follow him down the stairs. When he reached the bottom landing he banged on Mrs Dickson’s door before turning the key and entering the house. The old buddy, who was profoundly deaf, was sitting by the fire drinking tea, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding outdoors. The boys, who knew the drill, assisted their dad in hauckling the old women out of her house and into one of the two Anderson shelters on the back green.
Connie had dashed back into the house to assist Kitty with preparing the air-raid picnic and as the two of them started to flee the house they could hear explosions reverberating all around the outside area. ‘That was close,’ Kitty mumbled.
‘Too bloody close,’ was Connie’s angry retort.
They had just arrived on the ground floor when Kitty turned to Connie and gasped. ‘Oh, Connie, that new woman who has just come to stay opposite Mrs Dickson – will she know where to take her two lassies and herself?’
‘Don’t know. But let’s knock her up.’
Kitty and Connie frantically banged on t
he door. Eventually they heard a chair being dragged along the hall and then slowly the lock turned and a wee voice cried, ‘My mummy isn’t well. She’s lying on the floor and she’s crying.’
Connie swallowed hard before saying, ‘What’s your name, little girl?’
‘Ina and my wee sister’s called Dolly.’
‘Right, Ina, climb down off the chair and pull it back from the door so that Kitty and I can come in and help your mummy.’
It seemed a long time before the chair was dragged along the floor again to allow Kitty and Connie access to the house.
They were running along the hallway when the sound of close overhead machine-gun fire startled them. Ina and Dolly immediately began to scream in unison. Connie grabbed hold of Ina and Kitty took Dolly, and they got them into the living room. Both women suddenly let go of the children and gasped when they were confronted by the children’s mother lying on the bare linoleum floor in obvious distress. Alarmed, Kitty looked at Connie in the hope that she would tell her what they needed to do.
Connie, who always appeared to be so self-assured, seemed to be in an even greater panic than Kitty. Gazing down on the woman, who was obviously in need of urgent medical attention, all she could do was mumble, ‘Oh. Oh. Oh.’
‘Mrs … I don’t know your name but I’m Kitty and this is Connie,’ Kitty stuttered whilst grabbing hold of Connie’s hand to make sure she didn’t run away and leave her. ‘We both live upstairs. Are you able to tell us what is wrong with you?’
‘I’m not due for another month …’ The woman gasped. ‘My man, Sergeant Fred Ferguson, is in the Air Force over in Pitreavie. No due leave until the weekend.’
‘And what’s your name?’ Kitty pleaded.
‘D-o-o-o-r-a …’ was the whimpered, stuttered reply.
Overwhelmed by anxiety, Connie gulped before wriggling free from Kitty’s grip. Leaning backwards she then murmured, ‘Kitty, I don’t … No, I just don’t …’
‘Don’t what?’ Kitty hissed through gritted teeth.
‘Know how babies get themselves … born.’
‘But you must have some experience.’
‘No, I haven’t. You see, the only birth I was ever at was my own!’
Kitty’s instinct was now to rise up off the floor and flee down Restalrig Road and get a midwife to come up and deliver the baby. But just then the tenement was shaken violently by more bombs exploding. These noises were still reverberating and terrifying everybody in the room, especially the children, when directly above them pandemonium in the form of several dogfighting aeroplanes added to everybody’s anxiety.
Kitty reluctantly concluded that the only thing that should be done right now was for her to grab the children and flee to the probable safety of the shelters. She was just about to carry out her plan when a shriek from Dora stopped her dead in her tracks. It was then Kitty heard Connie say, ‘Come on, Kitty, we can’t leave her so we will just have to roll up our sleeves and do what we can.’
All Kitty could say in reply was to mumble, ‘B-b-b-b-b-b,’ until Connie slapped her hard on the back. ‘Your mother had children so you must have an idea of how they get themselves into this world. And I’m told that, nowadays, you get a lesson on it before you leave school.’
‘A lesson on it before you leave school, Connie?’ Kitty sniggered. ‘Well let me tell you, the dried-up old spinster of a teacher who took the lesson began by saying, “When you bath a baby the two things that you must have are a bath and a baby!” And as to her knowing anything about the facts of life … it was all a mystery to her and always would be!’
‘Oh,’ was all Connie could say as Dora let out another howl.
Kitty’s eyes were now bulging and her head was rocking slowly from side to side. She wanted to shout that the only birth she had anything to do with, forby her own, was Rosebud’s. Then a supposedly fully trained midwife had made such a mess of bringing her into the world that her mother had bled to death. Thinking of her mother and how she had been so badly let down had Kitty resolve there and then that, ignorant as she was, she could not leave this woman and therefore she would have to offer her any assistance she could.
Springing immediately into action, Kitty firstly ordered Connie to get the kettle and pots filled with water and then to put them on the stove to boil. Kitty wasn’t sure why she would need hot water but it seemed that was one of the most important things you must have when someone was in labour. She then helped Dora to get up off the floor, and with the assistance of Connie, they placed her into a big easy chair.
Dora Ferguson turned out to be a model patient but when Kitty had to kneel down in front of Dora to look between her legs she nearly fainted. There in front of her was a huge gaping hole like that of a large fish’s head. Like a fish it appeared to be gulping, dilating, contracting, and then, out of the blue, the hole was filled by a round hairy ball. How on earth, she wondered, did a woman’s vagina stretch to such a size, and what was the obstruction that was now filling the hole? Was it the baby’s head? A long and agonising series of moans from Dora abruptly brought Kitty back from her stupefaction.
The yells had just abated when Dora gasped, ‘Can you see the head?’
‘Well,’ replied Kitty, ‘there is something there now that wasn’t there before, but in this flickering gaslight … I’m not quite sure what it is.’ She quickly looked again and now she could see that it was a small round head and that it was free to below the nose. Within seconds the whole head and neck and the top of the shoulders were clear. Instinctively Kitty knew that if she hooked her fingers under the baby’s oxters she would be able to pull it completely free.
Connie started to weep when she heard the baby slip and slither its way into the world. And when the all-clear was ringing out, Kitty smacked the baby gently to make it cry. Instinctively she knew that she must now sever the umbilical cord before handing the baby to Connie. However, Connie seemed reluctant to take hold of the child so Kitty forcibly said through clenched teeth, ‘Get this wee soul washed and dressed, Connie.’ Swiftly turning back to Dora she asked in the same impatient, commanding voice, ‘You do have some clothes ready for the baby?’
‘Aye, aye, I waste nothing,’ Dora stammered, ‘so Dolly’s baby clothes are in the bottom drawer in that chest over there. They have all been washed and ironed. And as soon as you can, Connie, let me hold her.’ Exhausted, Dora then collapsed back against the cushions and surprised Kitty when she announced with a smile, ‘I’m going to call her after you … Kitty.’
Five minutes later Connie took the new baby to Dora and as she laid the bundle into her arms she chuckled. ‘I don’t think the name Kitty will suit this baby.’
‘And why for no? Kitty’s such a lovely name.’
‘Right enough it is, Dora,’ laughed Connie, ‘and true I’ve not got any experience with babies, but this wee mite has an extra bit that your lassies don’t have.’
‘Are you saying I’ve got a son?’ Dora exclaimed before opening up the shawl to check for herself. ‘Oh you’re right and won’t him being a boy not half make my Fred so happy.’
The clamour of old Mrs Dickson being brought back into the safety of her home echoed throughout the stair. On hearing it Connie rushed to the door and called out, ‘Johnny, we’re in here. We need some help.’
Johnny immediately left the boys to attend to Mrs Dickson and he joined Kitty and Connie. He didn’t know what he expected to find in the house he had just entered but it certainly wasn’t his daughter Kitty smeared with blood. ‘What on earth has happened here? Were you injured in the air raid?’
Kitty chuckled. ‘No, Dad. Dora here was in labour and I––’
‘We,’ Connie quickly corrected.
‘We brought the baby into the world.’
‘That’s right,’ crooned Dora, ‘and what a girl you have in Kitty. Don’t know what I would have done without her.’
Johnny nodded, then he looked expectantly about the room, but all he could see, forby the three women
, were Ina and Dolly huddled together on the floor and now fast asleep.
‘Where’s Rosebud?’ he stammered.
‘With you I hope,’ Kitty replied. ‘Remember I told you to go and get her and take her to the shelter.’
Johnny’s face drained of colour. His bottom lip began to quiver and his breath was coming in short bursts. Quickly, followed by Kitty, he dashed out of the Ferguson household and, taking the steps three at a time, he bounded up to his own front door.
As he approached the closed door he felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. It rose even further when he heard from behind the door a tearful little voice sobbing, ‘Kitty, Daddy, Jack, Davy where are you all? I’m scared of the bangs.’
Turning the key in the lock Johnny pushed the door open and there stood Rosebud as he had never seen her before. Her face was awash with tears and yellow mucus was dripping from her nostrils. Intuitively he reached out to draw the distressed child into his arms and was taken aback when she shied away from him. ‘I hate you, Daddy, and you too, Kitty. You left me and I was frightened for the bangs and that’s why I’ve messed my new pyjamas.’
Kitty had pushed past her father and as she trod in Rosebud’s faeces she felt sick but her need to try and comfort the little girl pushed that feeling back down before she whispered, ‘Come on, dear, we’re sorry that you were overlooked.’
Rosebud sniffed and panted as she blubbered, ‘No, you and Daddy are not sorry! You don’t like me and I don’t like you.’ Without warning Rosebud lifted an excreta-covered foot and kicked Kitty in the shins.
Kitty’s first reaction was to smack Rosebud but Johnny had jumped in between them and, as he held Rosebud close to him, he whispered in her ear, ‘It is true that I have tried not to love you … but when I realised that you were all alone up here when the air raid was going on … I knew that if anything had happened to you I could not have lived with myself.’ Johnny increased his hold on Rosebud. ‘I was wrong, very wrong, to never say to you that I adore you. Believe me, sweetheart, I love you just as much, if not more, than my other children.’ Johnny’s head was now buried in Rosebud’s hair and he was weeping profusely. ‘Darling,’ he panted through his sobs, ‘from this night on I’ll spend as much time as I can with you so you’ll understand that you are one of us. You always have been and I was wrong to keep you at arm’s length.’
