Changing Patterns

by Judith Barrow

  They held one another’s gaze.

  ‘Babies decide when they’ll come.’ The midwife spoke briskly as she carried the metal bowls holding the remnants of the birth into the scullery. ‘Now father, you wash mother’s face, while I deal with this.’ She began to clean Mary’s thighs before pausing for a second. ‘They’re good strong babies. Small, but healthy. Twins often come early, you know. You should know. You’ve been the nurse.’ She smiled up at Mary between her knees. ‘But I’d like to get you to hospital as soon as possible. We need to get the babies, and you, checked over, my dear.’ Nurse Patterson addressed her next words to Peter. ‘Father, will you telephone again for the ambulance, while I finish cleaning mother up?’

  Mary and Peter exchanged amused glances. ‘Mother?’ Mary mouthed. ‘Mother?’ She pulled a comical face.

  ‘Father!’ He winked before turning to go into the hall.

  When he returned, shaking his head, both women looked at him.

  ‘The ambulance?’ Nurse Patterson said sharply.

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘The two are still out on calls, the other is not repaired. They say one will come when it can.’

  ‘Not good enough. We need them now.’ The midwife stood, hands on hips.

  ‘Why?’ Fear caught in Mary’s throat. She looked from one baby to the other and then at the woman. ‘Why, what’s wrong? Peter?’

  ‘There is nothing wrong.’ He glanced at the midwife.

  ‘No need to be hysterical, mother.’ But the woman moved closer to Peter, turning her head away from Mary. ‘We need to get them to hospital. I am worried about the little boy’s breathing and he’s slightly jaundiced.’

  Peter had already noticed. ‘Ja, it is best, I think.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone with a car?’

  ‘Nein. Mary’s brother-in-law, but he is not here.’ It was too complicated to explain. ‘I will look outside.’ He moved quickly.

  He didn’t realise he was in his stocking feet until he was standing on the road looking left and right. Nothing. Nobody.

  And then he heard it, the whine of an engine. The milk float. He ran towards it waving both arms in the air. It stopped with a squeal of brakes.

  The milkman jumped from his seat. ‘What the heck, mate?’ He was clearly shaken. ‘You could have got yourself killed.’

  ‘My … er … wife,’ Peter said. ‘My wife has had babies. Two of them. Twins. We need for them to go to hospital.’ He looked behind the man. ‘So?’

  The driver gaped and then looked over his shoulder at the milk float. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I can’t. More than my job’s worth. I’m on my way back to the depot with the empties.’

  Peter began to take off the crates.

  ‘Here, you can’t do that.’ The milkman tussled with the crate Peter was holding.

  ‘It is happening.’ Peter glared at him. ‘With or without your help, it will happen.’ He waited until the man let go of the crate and he stacked it with the others by the front door.

  The milkman flung out his arms in despair. ‘Okay, okay. I’ll do it. You go and get your missus. The name’s Joe, by the way.’

  Peter ran into the kitchen. ‘I stopped the milkman.’

  Mary began to laugh.

  The midwife looked horrified. ‘Really, that’s not necessary.’ She hurried out to the hall. ‘I’ll try for the ambulance again.’

  ‘Peter?’ Mary whispered. ‘I don’t care how we get there. It’s these two I’m worried about.’

  The milkman appeared in the doorway. He tipped his peaked cap to the back of his head and ran a hand over his mouth, obviously embarrassed. He coughed loudly, his large Adam’s apple moving rapidly up and down his throat. He looked at Peter. ‘We can put your missus on the back now … on a mattress or summat?’

  The midwife returned. ‘They say we have to wait. It really isn’t good enough but that’s all we can do, I’m afraid.’ There was a worried furrow on her forehead. ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing else for it.’

  Peter and Joe spoke at the same time. ‘There is the milk float.’

  ‘My milk float,’ Joe said. ‘I cleaned it out this morning. You could eat your dinner off the back of it.’

  ‘Slightly different than carrying two small vulnerable babies,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘We are wasting time.’ Peter ran up the stairs. ‘Come, help with the mattress and blankets.’

  The midwife shook her head in despair. ‘If you’re so determined—’

  ‘We are,’ Mary said. ‘Now, please, help me with these two.’

  ‘Well, I suppose there’s nothing else I can say.’ Nurse Patterson expertly took both babies in the crook of her arms. ‘But I have my dignity. I will follow on my bicycle.’

  ‘All okay back there?’ The driver peered through his mirror at them and shouted for what seemed to Mary the hundredth time. Deciding his precious load was worth working overtime without being paid, Joe was driving slowly and steadily all the way to Bradlow Hospital.

  ‘Yes.’ The chorus was the same each time, although Mary, lying in on the back of the float and almost smothered by the number of pillows and blankets Nurse Patterson had put around her, winced with every bump and hole in the road. Peter, wedged beside her, a baby in each arm, sat with his back to the cab.

  Once a woman tried to flag the float down. ‘Any to spare?’ she called.

  ‘Sorry, missus, no milk on board and I have two half pints of my own to deliver,’ he shouted.

  They left the woman staring after them.

  Despite her discomfort, Mary giggled quietly at the ludicrous situation they were in. She leaned against Peter and tipped her head back to receive his kiss. What a story to tell the twins when they were older.

  *

  The light from the parlour window falls across the two figures standing so close in the garden they could be one. The air is still, soft in the warmth left over from the day, barely rippling through the full-leaved branches of the trees on the opposite side of the road. The moon hangs between the stars, hoary against the blue-black of the night. On the beach the waves collapse in the familiar monotonous rattle on the pebbles. The cliffs jut out, darker than the sky.

  Peter turns Mary’s face towards him. They kiss. ‘Welcome home, Liebling,’ he says.

  Also from Judith Barrow

  Pattern of Shadows: available as ebook from www.honno.co.uk and good bookshops:

  Mary is a nursing sister at a Lancashire prison camp for the housing and treatment of German POWs. Life at work is difficult but fulfilling; life at home a constant round of arguments – often prompted by her fly-by-night sister, Ellen, the apple of her short-tempered father’s eye. Then Frank turns up at the house one night – a guard at the camp, he’s been watching Mary for weeks – and won’t leave until she agrees to go out with him. But Frank is a difficult man to love and won’t take no for an answer. It isn’t long before the gossips – eager for a victim and on the look-out for fraternisation with the enemy – have Mary in their sights.

  ‘No ordinary love story… An intelligent, poignant first novel’ Jan Fortune Wood

  'Barrow beautifully evokes those raw and edgy datys with this well-paced, gritty love story' Steve Dube, Western Mail

  ABOUT HONNO

  Honno Welsh Women’s Press was set up in 1986 by a group of women who felt strongly that women in Wales needed wider opportunities to see their writing in print and to become involved in the publishing process. Our aim is to develop the writing talents of women in Wales, give them new and exciting opportunities to see their work published and often to give them their first ‘break’ as a writer. Honno is registered as a community co-operative. Any profit that Honno makes is invested in the publishing programme. Women from Wales and around the world have expressed their support for Honno. Each supporter has a vote at the Annual General Meeting. For more information and to buy our publications, please write to Honno at the address below, or visit our website: www.honno.co.uk

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  Copyright © Judith Barrow, 2013

  The right of Judith Barrow to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The Author would like to stress that this is a work of fiction and no resemblance to any actual individual is intended or implied.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.

  ISBN 978-1-906784-82-9

  Cover photograph: Bert Hardy/Stringer, Picture Post, Getty Images

  Cover design: Jenks Design

  Ebook conversion: Elaine Sharples