Family of Women

by Annie Murray

  Chapter Sixteen

  The baby was due in February. By the end of the summer Violet stopped feeling sick and began to enjoy being at work again and the fuss she received from the other women, which made her feel important. For the first time she felt like Someone. Her belly swelled and showed up quite early against her slim figure. She started to feel the baby move inside her and it aroused her curiosity as well as anxiety. Who was that in there?

  But come January, it all went wrong. Violet woke in the middle of the night and knew something had happened. She had a feeling in her, not pain at first, just a sensation as if something had given way in her. Then she felt a trickle between her legs.

  I’ve wet myself! she thought, horrified as the trickle increased to a gush and she couldn’t control it. She leapt up in the pitch dark, but it was too late. She’d already soaked the mattress and more was running down her legs. It was a freezing night and the old shift she’d gone to bed in was soaked and hanging icy cold on her.

  ‘Harry!’ she whimpered. ‘Wake up – I’m all wet. There’s something happening!’

  Harry groaned. It took her some time to rouse him and get him to light the candle.

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ he asked crossly. ‘Ugh – it’s all wet!’ he had leaned his elbow in the big, pinkish stain which had spread across the bed.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on. The babby shouldn’t be coming yet, should it?’ Scared, Violet started to cry. She realized that despite all Bessie’s talk she had given her no real understanding of anything that would happen to her.

  Harry lit the candle and, seeing there was something really wrong, came and put his arms tenderly round her. She was shivering with cold and fright.

  ‘It’s all right. Come on – get this wet thing off.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on!’ she wailed. ‘I’ve just wet myself.’ She cried out then, as a burning pain tore across her swollen belly. ‘Oh, Harry, what’s happening? I don’t know what to do.’

  She would always remember her husband tenderly for these next moments. He held her as the pain gripped her, then as it died away he said, ‘Come on – lift up your arms.’ He tugged the half-sodden shift over her head and, finding a dry part of it, wiped her back and legs.

  ‘What else can you put on?’

  In a drawer he found a camisole vest and a blouse and dressed her like a child.

  ‘I’m still losing,’ Violet gasped miserably, as more warm liquid seeped out down her legs. Another pain came then, sudden and violent as a crack of thunder.

  ‘Oh God!’ She clung to him groaning until it passed. ‘The babby must be coming. What do we do?’

  ‘I’d better go and get the midwife.’ She could hear him trying not to panic and it made her feel stronger. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Course I will. But be quick!’

  Harry tore down the street like a madman and soon she heard him coming back and bounding noisily up the stairs.

  ‘You all right?’ he panted.

  She was kneeling, recovering from a fresh bout of pain and nodded at him, trying to smile.

  ‘Mrs Barker’s coming. She said to get the kettle on . . . Back in a tick.’ And he fled downstairs again, tripping on the top step and having to right himself as he went down, stumbling and swearing. Violet managed a smile at this before the pain took her in its grip again.

  ‘Am I having the babby?’ she asked when Mrs Barker, a kind, middle-aged woman, appeared upstairs.

  ‘Looks like it, dear.’ She patted Violet’s hand. ‘Now don’t you worry. I’ve seen hundreds of babbies into the world. This one’s coming a bit early, but you’ll be right as rain.’

  The night passed in a swirl of agony. Violet lay on the mattress, which Mrs Barker covered with newspaper and then with an old sheet over the top. Violet kept hearing the paper crackling as she moved, and in between the roaring pain she was aware of Harry’s voice as he ran for the things Mrs Barker requested.

  As dawn broke she was becoming completely exhausted and the pain reached the point where it was unbearable, and soon the baby was born, cracking her open, then slithering into Mrs Barker’s hands. There was a silence, then a tiny snuffling noise. Despite her exhaustion Violet was alert with a mother’s need to hear a cry, to know it was all right.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ She wanted someone to comfort her, to say things were all right.

  Mrs Barker looked up, immediately trying to hide her worry. ‘You’ve had a boy. He’s beautiful, but he’s a tiny little thing. We’ll have to do our best to keep him warm. Let’s see if he’ll take any milk. You just sit up a bit, dear.’

  She brought the tiny scrap of a child to Violet, wrapped up but not yet washed. Violet saw a minute face, the skin yellow, eyes tightly closed and rimed with white, the whole tiny creature pulsating like a little bird. She was frightened of him, he was so small, yet her whole being flooded with protective feelings. A little boy – my little boy!

  ‘Hello, babby.’ She heard the soft tenderness in her own voice.

  ‘See if he’ll suckle,’ Mrs Barker ordered.

  Without any ado she pulled up Violet’s vest and began to massage her nipple.

  ‘Put his mouth to you. They know what to do.’

  But the little one didn’t know what to do. His mouth didn’t move when Violet pressed it to her breast and his eyes didn’t open.

  ‘You can do it,’ she whispered.

  But there was no response.

  ‘Hand him to me,’ Mrs Barker ordered. I’ll wrap him up well and we’ll get the fire going downstairs. It’s a bitter night. We’ll keep him warm till he’s ready and you can get yourself a bit of shut-eye.’

  Violet reluctantly handed the baby over. In a minute Mrs Barker was back.

  ‘That husband of yours has built up a good fire – he’s ever so good with him, I’ll say that. Sitting holding him, he is.’

  Violet smiled wanly. She was so exhausted, her pale hair plastered to her head. Mrs Barker cleaned her up and kept telling her to sleep. But she knew she would never sleep. She felt jangled and full of nerves.

  But the next thing she knew, the room was filled with hard winter sunshine. Her body felt bruised and scoured out, a sodden rag between her legs and someone had just weighted the bed down, sitting beside her. It was Harry, and there were tears running down his cheeks.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ She jerked upright, heart pounding.

  Harry started sobbing. ‘He’s gone. Passed on.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Her teeth started to chatter. ‘No!’ she cried, her eyes desperately searching his face for some hope. ‘No . . . No – he hasn’t – you’re lying to me!’

  But Harry’s shoulders were heaving with sobs.

  ‘He was in my arms . . . He was all right . . .’ She could hear the shock and disbelief in his voice. ‘She said to keep him warm and we was by the fire. And then he gave a bit of a shudder, like . . . He wasn’t breathing any more . . .’ He broke down and cried then, hands over his face. ‘He’s gone, Vi . . .’

  ‘No – he can’t have! You’re lying to me!’ she screamed. She leapt up and ran downstairs to find him for herself.

  Mrs Barker was down there and she turned. It was too late to hide the tiny form, lying on the table, wrapped in a piece of sheet.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Mrs Barker shook her head. ‘You poor young thing.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  They named him Bobby.

  He was buried from Bessie’s house, carried on the hearse of an old man who had died in Summer Lane.

  Violet walked behind with Harry, and her mom and sisters and Charlie and Gladys. The day was grey and cold as stone, and Violet felt as if her heart was being torn out as she saw the hearse and the black horses with their plumes begin to move off along the row of mean, soot-grimed houses towards Witton Cemetery, carrying her little boy in the tiny white coffin.

  They had had to cajole her out of the house that morning. S
he’d been staying over at Mom’s, just for that one night. She didn’t want to be with Harry – she wanted her sisters, her childhood. Harry had gone to his mother too.

  Violet barely slept, lying in the old three-quarter-size bed beside Rosina. Charlie had left home, and Clarence had been very poorly over the winter with his chest and had taken to sleeping downstairs by the range. So Marigold slept in the attic and Rosina had made the room her own, with her postcards of her screen heroines, Lillian Gish and Jessie Matthews in their finery stuck to the wall above her head.

  ‘I want my picture taken like that,’ she said to Violet when they went up. ‘With fur collars and feather boas and lace and silk . . .’ She hugged herself at the thought.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Rosy,’ Violet said, miserably. ‘You hardly ever come round and see me.’

  ‘Well, you’re married, aren’t you?’ She sat down with a bounce on the bed. ‘What d’you want me for?’

  It’s lonely being married, she wanted to say, but didn’t want to admit it.

  ‘You could still come. Harry’s not there all the time.’

  ‘I meant to – only . . .’ Rosina rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve been busy.’

  Violet smiled. Rosina seemed older than her years. She was a proper handful, bad-tempered and lippy, and although Violet sometimes admired her for it, she’d felt she didn’t know her any more, or even like her, sometimes. But as they’d got into bed last night in the candlelight, Rosina stood between the two beds, her beautiful long hair loose over her shoulders, and said timidly, ‘Shall I get in with you, Vi? Like we used to?’

  Violet nodded, eyes filling with tears. She shifted over as Rosina blew out the candle and her slim, curving body snuggled up close to Violet. It was a comfort.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ Rosina said, and Violet could hear that she was close to tears. ‘I don’t know what it’s like. But it’s so sad.’

  ‘I want him.’ Violet let go then and wept, wretchedly. ‘My little boy! I just want to hold him . . .’

  ‘Oh, Vi!’ Rosina was sobbing too, and Violet remembered then how sweet she could be. Knowing her sister felt some of the pain with her was a comfort. And as she grew calmer, another thought came which had been returning to her all week as she had lain at home, aching with grief. It was the memory of that evening when Marigold found out that her mother had taken her baby and given it to the orphanage. At the time, and since, she had blocked out Marigold’s great, unearthly howl of anguish. She had not understood, not then. But now she could hear it in her head. And she could feel it for herself.

  ‘Let go of me a tick – I need to get up,’ she said to Rosina.

  ‘You gunna be sick?’

  ‘No . . . I want to see Mari.’

  She lit the candle and padded up the attic stairs to Charlie’s old room. It had not changed much, still plain white and bare except for the bed and a chair. She could see Marigold’s lumpen shape curled on her side in bed. Marigold hadn’t said anything to her about little Bobby. She’d just silently got on with all the household tasks that were forever expected of her while everyone fussed round Violet, even Bessie, who had shown real grief over the loss of her grandson. Bessie had just taken over, and made a great to-do to the neighbours about poor Vi and all she was having to do for her.

  Violet looked down at her sister, lying there with her eyes closed. No one had made any fuss about her baby going.

  ‘Mari?’ she whispered.

  Marigold heaved herself resentfully on to her back and opened her eyes. Her face looked like a white, square box, framed with black hair.

  Violet perched on the edge of the bed, which dipped severely in the middle. Marigold stared blankly back at her with her flinty eyes, as if she was still asleep, but with her eyes open. Tears ran down Violet’s face again.

  ‘I never said anything – at the time – about your little babby. It was terrible for you . . . I didn’t know – not till now . . .’ She trailed off.

  Marigold’s eyes narrowed for a second, into what seemed such a vicious expression that Violet’s tears stopped. She was chilled. But then Marigold opened her eyes again and Violet wondered if it had been the uncertain light, that she’d imagined it.

  ‘S’all right,’ Marigold said stolidly, then added matter-of-factly, ‘Your babby died.’

  ‘Yes.’ The tears soon came again. ‘He was so tiny . . .’

  ‘Poor babby.’ The words held no expression. There was a long silence. Violet wasn’t sure what she had expected. When had it ever been easy to communicate with Marigold? She had wanted to say she understood about the baby, but hadn’t she also wanted something back?

  Marigold turned over again. ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘All right.’ Violet got up and the bedsprings creaked slightly. ‘Night, Mari.’

  There was no reply.

  Chapter Eighteen

  1936

  After Bobby, Violet had two miscarriages, the second very shortly after she knew she was expecting. It broke something in her for a time.

  ‘I’ll never be able to have a babby. There’s something the matter with me!’ she sobbed to Bessie, to whom she went for comfort while the griping pains still signalled the quenching of that little flame of hope that had been lit with her third pregnancy. When her body let her down again, expelling vivid red clots, it mocked her hopes so cruelly. And it was made worse by the fact that Gladys and Charlie had finally had a little boy, Norman, last year, and Josephine had married her sweetheart Percy and had a daughter with a beautiful mop of curly black hair, called Lizzie. Violet felt left behind as a wretched failure, a nobody.

  She became nervy and couldn’t seem to make the simplest decisions, and in her anger and sense of failure she took it out on Harry. All the things which she had put up with before, even smiled at – the way he was unpredictable and she couldn’t rely on him being there, his wild, sparky energy, his refusal to be tied down – all seemed aggravating and hurtful. Now it all just felt as if he didn’t care about her. He was either out with his mates or at his wretched mother’s house.

  ‘I don’t know why you bothered getting married,’ she raged at him sometimes, when he turned up late once again to face a congealing plate of food. ‘All you want is a servant to cook your dinner.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?’ Often he’d come up and squeeze her round the waist, trying to win her round with teasing and kisses.

  But these days she’d lost her sense of humour.

  ‘Oh, get off – you needn’t think you can get round me like that. Why don’t you try coming home on time for once?’

  She became a thin ghost of herself. All she could think of doing was to run home to her mom, like a child, lost in herself. She started smoking. It soothed her.

  And the house was in a terrible state. The roof leaked badly over the little back bedroom and the cellar flooded, so when they went to feed the gas meter they sometimes had to wade thigh deep through sooty water. All that paint which Harry had applied so eagerly to the walls was soon discoloured and began flaking off, and the place stank of damp and mice. Violet was forever battling with infestations of bugs, but the mice were the worst. There was a constant need to place mousetraps in the scullery, and all the food like flour and sugar had to be kept in tins.

  ‘Oh, why can’t we move somewhere else, instead of festering in this bloody dump?’ she would moan to Harry as she had to clean out the scullery yet again to get rid of the mouse droppings.

  ‘We’re all right,’ he kept saying. ‘Only a year or two now, and we’ll be off . . . No point in paying more rent than we have to.’

  He always seemed able to keep his spirits up, full of money-making schemes to boost their savings. His pal Goosey’s dad drove a truck, and on a trip up to Stoke-on-Trent got hold of a whole load of damaged crocks. Harry and Goosey bought the job lot off him and set up with a barrow until they’d got shot of them at knock-down prices. They barely made any profit but it seemed to keep Harry happy. Chri
stmas of 1935 Violet remembered as the ‘snake’ year. Harry learned from another pal how to make colourful snakes and dragons to sell as little toys. They were made out of strips of painted paper, cleverly folded back and forth again and again and attached to an empty cotton reel. When you released them and unfolded them they ran undulating along the ground, propelled by the cotton reel. For weeks the table downstairs was covered in newspaper and cheap glue and paint and Harry was begging cotton reels off the women at Vicars.

  ‘What you up to, Harry?’ they asked.

  ‘Going to Australia!’ he told them, chirpily. They humoured him.

  ‘Oh yes, and I’m flying to the moon, darlin’!’

  ‘You building your own aeroplane?’

  Violet wondered if Harry really believed they would go. Sometimes she thought he just needed a dream to hold on to. As for her own dreams, she had none except one. A child of her own.

  And then she found she was expecting again. All through the pregnancy she was frightened, on the alert for it all to go wrong. She could hardly bear to hope for better, in case the next day she started bleeding. And even if she got as far as giving birth to the baby, it might be like Bobby all over again and she would be burying it within a week. Harry did his best to be soothing.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he’d murmur into her neck as she cried with worry. ‘Don’t worry, Vi.’ And he held her so gently and kindly that she could forgive all the times they quarrelled. But most of the time she was locked into her own cold self and she knew she was gradually driving him away. After all, she knew she wasn’t much of a wife to come home to. If only they could have a baby, things would be better, she just knew it. It would make everything all right.

  ‘Look at her – she’s a right bonny little thing!’