By the look on Tom’s face, Catherine thought he would throw the bottle of medicine after the retreating doctor. He came back and took her hand.
‘I’m wrapping you up in cotton wool for the next five months, Mrs Cookson,’ he declared.
She felt weak and tearful. Now that she had to face the truth of her pregnancy, Catherine was suddenly seized with worry about taking the emetic.
‘Do you think I’ve damaged the baby?’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never been so sick in all my life. What if I’ve harmed it?’
Tom squeezed her hand. ‘No, don’t think like that. The baby’ll be fine. You just need feeding up and plenty of rest.’
‘Kiss me,’ she said, a wave of affection flooding through her.
He leant over and tenderly brushed her lips.
‘Our first baby,’ he smiled. ‘I’m so happy I could dance down the street.’
Catherine laughed at the thought of her shy husband doing anything so extrovert. His enthusiasm gave her courage. There was nothing to fear in having this baby. If Tom was so keen on having a family, then she would be too. She would do anything to make him as happy as he made her.
‘Go and get your dancing shoes on, then,’ she teased. ‘This I have to see.’
He laughed and kissed her again.
***
Once Catherine got used to the idea, she began to relax and enjoy the thought of their baby growing inside her. She delighted in the fuss that Tom made of her and his attempts to get hold of extra rationed meat to build up her strength. The sickness passed, but she continued to feel tired. Anything mildly strenuous, such as carrying books from the library, could bring on haemorrhaging from the nose and mouth.
Tom insisted on fetching her reading and much of the shopping. Catherine spent the autumn cocooned in the flat, being pampered and loved. Her optimism for the future grew with the baby. The imminent threat of invasion that had hung over the country for months receded a little. The heroics of the RAF had decimated Hitler’s air force and the bravery of the navy to keep supply lines open had helped thwart a Nazi overthrow - at least for the winter.
Catherine dared to hope for a less dangerous future into which her baby could be born. She began to write short stories and verse for her unborn child, imagining the day when she could read them aloud to a child snuggled in her lap. By the end of October, her ‘bump’ was still small but she could feel the baby kicking strongly inside her, turning restlessly. If Tom was there, she would quickly put his hand over the movement and watch the look of awe spread across his face. They laughed with nervous excitement. She and Tom played endless make-believe games.
‘We’ll call her Catherine after you,’ he said. ‘Catherine the Great - an empress with beauty and brains.’
‘It’s a boy, he’s already batting for his country,’ Catherine joked. ‘He’ll be sporty and handsome like his father. William. That would suit.’
‘I like John.’
‘No,’ Catherine cried, ‘he might be bad-tempered like my grandda.’
Tom chuckled. ‘David then. A small man like me against an uncertain world - Goliath.’
Catherine laughed. ‘Yes, small, but with a lion’s heart - and a clever mind. He’ll go to Oxford like you, of course. David, that’s perfect.’
Then in November a note arrived from Tyneside telling Catherine that her mother was seriously ill.
‘Who’s it from?’ Tom asked. ‘It’s not signed.’
Catherine was just as perplexed. ‘It’s not Aunt Mary’s writing . . .’
‘Some busybody.’ Tom was suspicious.
‘But what if it’s true?’ Catherine fretted. ‘I’ll have to go to her. I couldn’t bear the thought of her dying alone and me not getting to see her. The last time - I was that sharp—’
‘Kitty, you can’t travel all that way in your condition. You’re not strong enough. Think of the baby.’
‘I am thinking of the baby,’ Catherine said in distress. ‘I haven’t told Kate yet. She might die and never know she had a grandbairn. She has a right to know.’ Suddenly she burst into tears.
At once Tom was contrite, hugging her close. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Catherine tried to explain. ‘I still feel so guilty - leaving her to fend for herself after Davie died. Now I’m going to be a mother myself - I want to make it up with her before it’s too late.’
‘I understand,’ Tom assured her. ‘We’ll ring Mary and find out what’s going on.’
But the lines were down and Tom failed to get through. This only heightened Catherine’s anxiety. He could do nothing to put his wife’s mind at ease or dissuade her from attempting the long journey north.
‘I’m coming with you,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll beg two days’ compassionate leave.’
After hours of delays on freezing station platforms, they rattled north in an overcrowded train. Because of the lateness, they travelled during the blackout, plunged in darkness all the way. Catherine felt jumpy and ill, the baby fluttering in her womb as if sensing her disquiet.
They arrived in Gateshead in the middle of the night and dozed in a waiting room until the early morning train could take them to Tyne Dock. It was still dark when they reached Kate’s flat in Chaloner Lane and hammered on her door. Tom gripped his wife’s arm in support, as she swayed with fatigue and worry.
A bleary-eyed Kate came down the stairs to answer the frantic knocking. Catherine threw herself at her mother and burst into tears.
‘You’re alive!’ she sobbed.
‘By all the saints! What you doing here, hinny?’
‘Let us in, please, Mrs McDermott,’ Tom said wearily.
She led them up the narrow staircase and into her small living room, Catherine gabbling incoherently about the letter. Kate fetched her a glass of water and a blanket.
‘Just had a bad cold,’ she said in bemusement. ‘Nowt to call the undertaker for. You shouldn’t have worried.’
Catherine’s relief turned quickly to annoyance. ‘Then why would someone write such a thing?’
‘Bet it’s that wife downstairs sticking her nose in. Thinks I spend too long in the drink shop with her man. Not that I do,’ Kate added hastily. ‘Maybes she thought if you were around you’d put a stop to it.’ Her mother looked sheepish. ‘Sorry, hinny. By, but it’s grand to see you!’
Catherine sank back and closed her eyes. She felt terrible. It was Tom who broke the news about the baby.
‘A bairn!’ Kate gasped in delight. ‘That’s champion. I’ll come and help when your time comes,’ she said eagerly. ‘Eeh, a grandbairn! Wait till I tell our Mary.’ She brushed away a tear.
At Tom’s insistence, they put Catherine to bed. She slept fitfully, unused to the clanking and hooting from the docks. Every time a train rumbled by, the house shook and the windows rattled. She got up at tea time, listless and out of sorts. Kate looked better than she had seen her in years. With liquor harder to come by and work to keep her occupied, her mother was as brisk and bossy as ever.
Catherine felt resentful at having rushed north on false pretences. She half suspected Kate might have concocted the letter herself, just to get attention. Well, she wouldn’t do it again - not once the baby was born - and she’d resist her mother’s plans to take over her home and baby.
‘Tom’s going to help me at the birth,’ Catherine declared, startling both her husband and mother. ‘There’s no need for you to be there.’
Kate was scandalised. ‘You cannot have him there! Lads don’t bring out bairns.’
‘Doctors do it all the time,’ Catherine pointed out.
Kate blustered. ‘Aye, but they’re different. It’s bad luck to have a man in the house.’
‘I don’t believe in all that superstitious nonsense,’ Catherine said crossly.
They
left early the next day, Kate fussing over Catherine and scolding Tom for allowing her daughter to make the journey.
‘She looks worse than I do,’ Kate tutted. ‘You’ll need me when the time comes. Be sure to let me know. Tak care of yoursel’, hinny.’
As usual, Tom did not complain about Kate’s brusque treatment, which made Catherine feel all the more guilty for having dragged them both to Tyneside.
‘You shouldn’t let her speak to you like that,’ she said, as they embarked on the slow journey home. ‘Why can’t you stand up for yourself more?’
He looked unperturbed. ‘She’s never going to change her mind about me. I took her precious daughter away. I don’t mind what she says to me. It’s you that matters.’
‘Oh, stop being so bloody reasonable!’ Catherine cried.
They travelled back in silence, Catherine feeling awful for taking out her anger on Tom when the whole situation was her fault. But she was too wretched to try to make amends.
Back home, she retreated to bed and Tom went back to work. He brought her a small bunch of flowers as a peace offering, but they made her sneeze violently and brought on a nosebleed. Tom was mortified and Catherine’s protests that he was not to blame fell on deaf ears.
For his sake, she tried to galvanise herself out of bed and have tea ready for him when he came home. She sat by the small fire, depressed by the shortening days and a nagging anxiety that she could not articulate.
That late November evening, watching Tom marking books at the table, she covered her swollen belly and knew what it was. The baby wasn’t moving. She jolted. How long had it been still? A day? Two days? Longer? She tried to think calmly. She had felt movement on the journey south - small, squeezing sensations as if the baby were curling up to hibernate for winter. But nothing much since. Not the strong kicks of before.
Catherine pressed her hands hard on her stomach, willing her baby to move. Was she being fanciful, or did it feel smaller, a hard round ball under her trembling hands? She must have cried out, for Tom looked up startled. Without asking, he came to her at once and put his large warm hands over hers.
She gazed at him in fear.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t feel. . .’
Tom rushed out of the house without stopping to put on his coat. Catherine sat hunched in the chair, forbidding her mind to think of anything until his return. He came back twenty minutes later with a doctor she’d never seen before.
He was cheerful and reassuring as they helped her to bed. He looked more troubled after an examination.
‘There’s still a heartbeat, though it’s not very strong. It might be best if we have you moved to hospital, Mrs Cookson.’
‘Hospital?’ Panic choked her. She clung to Tom’s arm. Maternity hospital to her meant long, humiliating, public rows of beds in dismal workhouse wards. Tom would not be allowed to be there. She would be all alone. Fear overwhelmed her.
‘What would they do?’ Tom asked, equally anxious.
The doctor looked pitying. ‘It might be necessary to induce the baby.’
‘Make it come?’ Tom queried. The man nodded.
‘No!’ Catherine cried. ‘It’s too early. The baby’s not ready. I’m only six months gone.’
Tom hushed her and looked to the doctor for advice.
He tried a smile of reassurance. ‘Listen, we’ll do nothing tonight. You stay still in bed and rest. I’ll come back in the morning and we’ll make a decision then.’
He left to the eerie sound of the air-raid siren, the first since their return from Tyneside. Tom lay on the bed and held her.
‘You’re not moving anywhere for any sirens.’ He kissed her. ‘The three of us’ll stay together or go together.’
Catherine buried her face in his chest.
The raid was a false alarm and the all-clear sounded late that night. By then she was past sleeping. Sometime in the early hours, she felt moisture trickle between her legs. For a moment she thought she had wet herself, then worried it might be blood. She lay, not daring to move, wishing for the morning to come.
When Tom woke he berated her. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ He went rushing off for the doctor again.
This time there was no cheery banter.
‘I’m afraid your waters have broken, Mrs Cookson.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked in bewilderment.
‘It means your labour has started.’
Catherine let out a whimper. ‘But it can’t survive at six months, can it? It’s not a proper baby.’
‘If we can get you to hospital, it might be possible to delay the birth. But I’m sorry to say the chances aren’t good. The heartbeat is very weak.’
Tom said very calmly, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if she stays still in her own bed? If there was a midwife to help me, I could look after her.’
The doctor eyed him in surprise. Eventually he nodded.
‘It’s as good a plan as any - if you’re not squeamish, Mr Cookson.’
‘She’s my wife,’ Tom said proudly. ‘I’d do anything for her.’
Catherine was too overcome to speak, humbled by Tom’s devotion and grateful at not having the trauma of being uprooted to a lonely hospital bed.
Later in the day, Mrs Hume arrived to oversee the birth. She was a widow who liked to talk about her son at sea, dodging the hazards in the Atlantic convoys. Her hearty chatter grated on Catherine’s nerves. Tom sensed this and kept the woman at bay in the sitting room, supplied with endless cups of tea.
‘Nothing much we can do until the baby decides to come,’ she said, launching into a description of a long arduous birth she had attended the previous week.
By the end of the day, the situation had not changed and Tom sent her home. For a week, Catherine lay in a twilight world, waiting. Mrs Hume and Tom took it in turns to be at the flat, Catherine insisting that he went back to work. She could see by the tired creases around his eyes and his tense mouth that he was finding their state of limbo unbearable. At least his lessons would keep his mind distracted for a short while.
On the eighth day, Mrs Hume lost patience.
‘There’s not a flicker of life, Mrs Cookson. It’s time we got on with getting it out.’
Distraught and ill as she felt, Catherine did not believe her baby was dead.
‘I can feel it,’ she said in distress.
‘But you’ve said there’s been no movement for days.’ Mrs Hume was blunt. ‘You’ll make yourself really sick if you don’t expel that baby.’
When Tom came home, Catherine heard her say, ‘I’ll not have your wife’s death on my hands.’
After that, Mrs Hume set to work, giving her a draught of bitter liquid to drink and pummelling Catherine’s womb to hasten the labour. Late that night, exhausted and sore, Catherine felt the first real pangs of pain seize her body. She cried out and Tom came running into the room.
‘I think it’s coming. Help me, Tom. I’m scared.’
He wiped her face and neck with a damp cloth and spoke to her soothingly. She had nothing to fear; he’d talked it over a dozen times with the midwife and knew what to do.
She gripped his hand when the next labour pain swept through her body. It was like an iron fist squeezing her insides and she stifled a yell.
‘Scream if you want to, Kitty,’ Tom ordered.
‘I - don’t - want - to - wake - that woman,’ she panted.
‘She’ll not come near you,’ Tom said with feeling. ‘You can wake the whole bloody street - it doesn’t matter a bit.’
Catherine writhed and groaned through the early hours of the morning. She prayed for it all to be over, prayed that she would not have to look at the creature that was taking so long to leave her womb. It would be half formed, a freak of nature, a lumpen mass of flesh. To
m would have to wrap it up quickly and take it away. It was the one useful task the garrulous Mrs Hume could have done for them. But she was still snoring on their sofa.
Suddenly, Catherine felt a rushing sensation between her legs, like letting go on a slide. It couldn’t be stopped.
‘This is it,’ she whispered weakly.
Tom held her hand tight. ‘Push, Kitty!’
All at once, the baby was slipping out of her. Tom let go of her to catch it. She felt instant relief as the strange pressure subsided. Her whole body throbbed and shook. She squeezed her eyes shut. It was over. She knew without looking the baby was dead. Sometime in the dark hours she had felt it fade away.
‘Look, Kitty,’ Tom said in a hushed voice. ‘You were right. He’s a boy.’
Catherine’s heart lurched. She could not look. He was perverse to make her. But the next moment, he was thrusting something into her arms.
‘Don’t be frightened - look at him,’ Tom said, his voice full of wonder. ‘Our baby son.’
Catherine opened her eyes. A tiny slippery figure, still covered in mucus and blood, lay nestled between them. She gasped in surprise. He was perfectly formed - a miniature version of Tom, with his lean head and long feet and expressive hands. Tentatively she touched him, wondering at his neat fingers, his little bud of a mouth. He lay with his eyes closed as if peacefully sleeping, his body still warm.
‘He’s beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I never thought . . .’
She heard a strange noise, half yelp, half groan. Looking up, she saw the tears coursing down Tom’s harrowed face. The sight of it tore at her heart. In that instant, Catherine realised the enormity of what they had lost. Their son. A real flesh-and-blood person, not the figment of their guessing games. She gazed at the sweet baby in her arms and felt winded by the first violent pain of grief. Not only had he died, but all the years of life ahead of him that they should have shared together were gone too. She hugged him close, not wanting to ever let go.
Just then, Mrs Hume appeared at the door blinking sleepily. She looked confused at the sight of Catherine cradling the baby as if it lived. But Tom’s sobbing told the truth.
THE JARROW TRILOGY: all 3 enthralling sagas in 1 volume; The Jarrow Lass, A Child of Jarrow & Return to Jarrow Page 123
