The Running Years

by Claire Rayner

  Hyperemesis gravidarum,’ the doctor told her, when Florrie ignored Hannah’s instructions not to fuss, and sent for him. ‘You need some special treatmet, young lady, if you aren’t to lose this infant. Who d'you have here to take care of you, apart from servants? Mother, mother-in-law?’

  Hannah managed a wisp of a smile at that and shook her head ‘I'll be all right. I don’t need anyone.’

  ‘Indeed you do,’ the doctor said vigorously. ‘Indeed you do. I'll send Miss Bishop.’

  Miss Bishop proved to be a small termagant of a woman with legs bowed by childhood rickets and a round face adorned with glasses. Hannah looked at her severe navy dress and blindingly white apron and thought her formidable at first, but soon discovered her to be most gentle and caring creature, whose tight little mouth could relax into a smile of particular sweetness. She sat about Hannah with fearsome equipment, giving her rectal injections of sugar and salt water, an experience which Hannah felt too miserable to find as shaming as she might have done, and sat over her and fed her very slowly and with a great deal of gentle encouragement on dry toast and arrowroot. Florrie and Bet relaxed as Hannah slowly got better, and began to look less waiflike and pallid. By the time September had wheeled into a blustery October, and she had had several letters from Daniel in Shanghai, she felt much better.

  Albert was punctilious in his care of her. She may not have had a mother-in-law to share her distress, but she certainly had a father-in-law. He came to see her each week, to pay the account books presented to him by Bet an Florrie, who kept the household running on ball bearings, and to quiz Hannah about any other needs she might have.

  ‘This isn’t a gift, you understand,’ he would say as he put crisp five pound notes into the small japanned cash box. ‘This is the part of Daniel’s salary that it was agreed should be paid directly to you. Now, if there is anything else you need you must let me know.

  She had another source of masculine help. Uncle Alex emerged from a flurry of his own business affairs - he had been sending a number of English music hall acts across to New York to take part in vaudeville and burlesque shows there - to descent on Paultons Square with boxes full of smoked salmon and cheesecake and other assorted delicacies, none of which Hannah could face.

  ‘Far be it from me to criticize your husband, dolly,’ he said, ‘So I won’t. But I tell you, if I had that one here, I’d tie him into knots! Leaving a girl alone in such a state. So listen, who you got to take care of you, hey?’

  ‘Florrie and Bet,’ Hannah said. ‘Now , do stop. They're all anyone could want, they're marvellous to me. And Mr Lammeck, Daniels' father, he comes every week to pay the bills.’

  ‘You don’t need no bills paid by him when you got me,’ Uncle Alex said. They wrangled amiably for a while about money, she steadfastly refused to accept any. At last he gave in and instead talked about the news from the East End.

  ‘Your father’s gone to stay with your Uncle Benjamin, in Sidney Street,’ he told her. ‘The boys, too. They got the space there now Bella and Charlotte’s married, and anyway they had to leave Antcliff Street - trouble with the landlord.’

  ‘Leave Antclffe Street? The home of her childhood? She tried to imagine her father living amicably with his brother Benjamin and couldn’t, until Uncle Alex grinned and said,’ I got the place fixed up real nice. Benjamin and Sarah and young David live downstairs, your lot upstairs. They got separate doors, even. I boxed in the staircase, all fancy and modern, like the duplexes they got in America. I fixed it all up, with water in the upstairs kitchen, the lot.’ And she knew uncle Alex had once again found a way to provide his stubborn brother Nathan with care. She leaned forwards and kissed him gratefully. It was good to know they had a better place to live at last. Bloomah would have liked to live in the bigger flat too, but that was not a thought that could be faced, so Hannah pushed it away.

  ‘And young Solly’s working with me,’ Alex went on. ‘Sharp as a bloody needle that one, but he doesn’t always prick my length of tweed, you know what I mean? I reckon he does as well for himself in my time as he does for me. Still and all, I'll teach him.’ He nodded severely and then grinned, and she felt much bette about Solly.

  The weeks wore on, as her waistline spread and she began to think about preparing for the baby. Until now she had avoided thinking about it, as a person, and she tried now to decide whether he wanted a girl or a boy - and had to face the unpalatable truth that she did not want either. She was just nor ready for a child, not ready to cope with the needs of yet another person. She waned Daniel and wanted him badly. How could she look forward to the birth of a child feeling as lonely as she did? The hard fact was she resented the state of her health, and resented even more the cause of it. It would have been better to go with Daniel and let the baby die, she would think, and then feel sick with guilt at her own wickedness. So she tried not to think about the child at all, leaving it to Florrie to knit and sew clothes for it, which Florrie did with great satisfaction, and not a little skill. She had virtually adopted her mistress, it sometimes seemed, for all she was the younger of the two.

  On a dark afternoon in November when the fog wove its yellow patters round Paultons Square so thickly that she could not see across the square, a new dimension came into her life, to make the last weeks of her hated pregnancy less disagreeable.

  Though she heard the doorbell ring and Florrie’s footsteps pattering up from the kitchen to answer it and the faint buzz of voices in the hallway, she did not move from her comfortable chair by the fireside. The sickness had left her completely now, much to her gratitude and Miss Bishop’s approval when she visited each week, but she still suffered a good deal of lassitude and it was easier to sit still than to get to her feet to see who her unusual visitor might be; unusual because the doorbell hardly ever rang unexpectedly. She always knew when Uncle Alex or her father-in-law were coming, and Miss Bishop’s visits were as regular as the sunrise. Even so, she could not summon up much curiosity until the door opened and Florrie said breathlessly, ‘You got caller, mum,’ then stepped aside to let the visitor in.

  She stood there in the doorway, a tall slender girl with dark hair and pale grey eyes which looked merry and a little impudent, framed in very thick dark lashes, and wearing an elegant gown of grey gaberdine under glossy furs. Her hat was very fashionable, wide brimmed and trimmed with drooping ostrich feathers. She looked expensive and petted and very charming and she said in a slightly lisping husky voice, ‘Good evening, Mrs Lammeck! I'm Mrs Lammeck too. isn’t that delightful?’

  37

  ‘Judith?’ Hannah said again. ‘I think I have heard Daniel speak of you, but I can’t be sure …'

  ‘Well, why should you?’ the tall girl said affably, and began to peel off her gloves. ‘Now, do ask me to sit down and be comfortable and ask your nice little made to make us some tea and we shall have a lovely cosy chat.’

  ‘Of course,’ Hannah said, blushing a little at her own poor hospitality, and waved to a chair and then pulled e bellrope beside the fire. Florrie came in with suspicious promptitude and then went eagerly to make the tea for which she had been asked. Hannah at and looked with curiosity at the girl now sitting opposite her.

  ‘My dear, you look quite washed out, indeed you do! I cannot believe you always look so sad and sorry, indeed the gossip in the family is that you are a most delectable looking creature! And I'm sure you usually are. Are you having a dreadful time of it with the infant?’

  ‘Not very good,’ Hannah said and sat up a little more straightly. Washed out? Sad and sorry? oh dear, ‘I’ve been very sick, I'm afraid. What do you mean, "gossip in the family"?’

  Judith laughed, a loud and unselfconscious sound. ‘Dear girl, you don’t imagine, do you, that you can scoop up Aunt Davida’s precious darling as you did and not be talked about? And in a Registry Office too! Why, so listen to some of the biddies, you’d think you were the scarlet woman in person. It’s too delicious. You should hear my mother-in-law! And Aunt Susan. Oh
you’d enjoy it, I'm sure you would.’

  Hannah stared, puzzled. She should have found this girl offensive, should have been mortified to hear the things she was saying, but she wasn’t. Her directness and her cheerfulness took the sting out of the words, and anyway, it was very clear that she liked Hannah. Hannah decided that she was beginning to like her.

  Judith leaned forward. ‘Now, you have worked out who I am. haven’t you? My husband is Peter, such a darling, I do promise you, quiet and dour, you know, and altogether delicious. I do love him so! And his father is Alfred, who use to be Abdullah no really! They came from India or some such place, you know, the Lammecks. frightfully exotic. When I told Mamma I was going to marry into that family she nearly swooned away! She’s a Rothschild on her father’s side you see, frightfully proper, and was quite sure I’d chosen to ally myself with a blackamoor! And of course my family were Ashkenazi and the Lammecks are Sephardi, quite different, the synagogue services, are they not? Or do you not bother to go? I'm sure I would not if it weren’t for Peter. Anyway, as I say, Mamma was so put out to know I was marrying a Lammeck, until she met my lovely Peter and saw how adorable he is. And of course discover how very rich the Lammecks are. So you see, we are cousins, are we not?’

  ‘I suppose we are,’ Hannah said.

  ‘My dear, I do so feel for you,’ Judith said, as the tea arrived and Florrie busied herself about serving it. ‘The year before last,’ she shuddered prettily, ‘I was sitting about just like you and feeling quite, quite dreadful and looking worse. Why, if Peter so much a kissed me I almost swooned! As for anything more, well! Poor darling, he did have a bad time of it! Still, you don’t have that worry, do you, with your Daniel away? Though it must be hateful for you, for I'm sure you love him as dearly as I do my Peter. I am so sad for you. And there’s horrid Aunt Davida doing nothing to comfort you! Not that having her about would comfort anyone, of course! Anyway, that is why I am here. Dear Uncle Albert told me how alone you are, and said it would not do and he is quite right - ah, thank you!’ She beamed up at Florrie who had given her her tea, and Florrie went pink and bobbed, and reluctantly went away to tell Bet that Missus had a new friend come to visit who talked ever so free considering she was a lady, but was really nice ever so nice.

  ‘I would have come sooner had I known where to find you, but wretched Aunt D would not say, of course! I do dislike that silly lady, you know! She made such trouble for my poor Mama-in-law when I went out pavement chalking - ’

  ‘Pavement chalking?’ Hannah said, quite at sea. This girls prattle was very engaging but very confusing too.

  Judith laughed. ‘Oh my dear, such fun! As soon as your babe is born an you are free again you must come with me! The Suffragettes, don’t you know! I'm a great supporter, indeed I am. it’s quite a fashionable thing to do, for the more daring of us, you know! Last year once I took my Charles off the breast and could get out again, I became madly interested. I mean, why should these wretched men have it all their own way! They are spoiled and horrid. Well, not my Peter, of course, and I dare say not your Daniel, but the rest of them. So when it all started, the votes for women thing, thought it a great lark, and joined, and Aunt D! - well, she made the most frightful fuss and told Mama-in-law she should control me! Me! Margaret Lammeck control me! Can you imagine!’

  Hannah laughed, almost against her will. She was feeling better by the minute.

  ‘So, I did more, of course! I went out in the very early morning and chalked messages about the rally in Hyde Park all over the pavement outside Aunt D’s house in Park Lane. She was so put about, it was delightful! And of course when I sent a letter full of pepper to Mr Churchill and he was telling her all about it at one of her stuffy dinner parties and he said how dreadful it was, I laughed so much I nearly choked and she knew at once I had done it, and was so mortified! But I really mustn’t rattle on so! Tell me about you, everything now! For if we are to be friends, and I am determined we shall, then must know all about each other.’

  And tell her Hannah did. She had never thought herself able to be as relaxed with anyone as she became with Judith that foggy November afternoon. The fire burned cheerfully between them and the fog pressed against the window panes and they sat in the glow of a small rose-shaped lamp and chattered over their cooling tea. Judith heard all about Nathan and Solly and Jake and sympathized deeply, for she never had brothers of her own but had always wanted them and her own parents were dead, and Judith told Hannah about her delightful baby Charles, an ‘eighteen month old armful of heaven' and her friends - who often found her rather shocking, with her wilful attachment to the Suffragettes - and then Hannah spoke of her Uncle Alex, describing him in such terms that Judith declared herself quite in love with him, and both talked about clothes and housekeeping and servants and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

  It was precisely what Hannah had needed, and after Judith went away with promises to return another afternoon, she slept better than she had since her pregnancy had begun and without one moment thinking about her unease about Daniel, whose letters had become less and less informative as the weeks went by.

  Judith for her part went and told her Uncle Albert that she had done all she could to cheer up his sad little daughter-in-law, and would continue to do all she could, for she was a sweet girl indeed.

  She did not add that it gave her a perverse pleasure to upset her Aunt Davida, but Albert was well aware that this was part of Judith’s attachment to Hannah. He did not mind in the least as long as she became attached. He had been worried about the girl. To be able to relinquish some of Hannah’s care to his niece was a relief to him, so he stopped visiting Paultons Square quite so frequently, sending the money by the hand of Young Levy instead.

  The year turned on its axis, and in 1911 rang in with the usual New Year’s Eve mixture of excitement and depression. Hannah spent it alone in the house, insisting that both Florrie and Bet out with their friends. ‘I shall be all right,’ she assured them. ‘I have almost four weeks to go yet, so don’t worry. And go or I shall be angry.’

  She sat beside he fire and heard the bells ringing, muffled, from the dark streets outside and tried not to cry. Judith had visited that afternoon and done all she could to cheer her up, but it was an impossible task. Th first anniversary of her wedding had come and gone, and Daniel had not been there. And the first anniversary of the deaths of Bloomah and Mary had come and gone, too. New Year’s Eve came as a culmination of her sadness. No one, not even Judith, could have lifted her from her despondency.

  When her labour pains started, in the small hours of the first of January, she did not identify them for what they were. She put them down to her general unease. She had been having vague contractions for some weeks, her belly hardening when she made extra physical efforts like climbing the stairs, or walking down to the flower seller on the corner. She thought at first they were the same, but by the time dawn lifted itself sluggishly over the chimney pots of the houses across the square the realized that these were different. There was a rhythm now, and that meant the time had come.

  Miss Bishop arrived, fetched by Florrie at nine o'clock in a state of towering excitement, and the doctor came, but both pronounced it early yet - the baby would not be born for some time. She lay in bed all through that long Saturday, listening to the waves of contractions in her belly, and tying, still not to think of the baby that would result from them. She didn’t want it, yet she could not bring herself to admit that fact. All she could do was lie there tense and blank faced, staring at the cloud-scudding sky above the chimney tops outside her window.

  Probably it was her own tension and control that contributed to the delay, for the pains went on, became more and more disagreeabble, and yet, Miss Bishop said when she came to examine her again, there was no progress.

  ‘You'll have to wait, that’s all,’ she said as she settled the covers round Hannah’s body again. ‘This one’s in no hurry.

  Twenty-four hours longer it went on, and she beca
me more and more tense, more and more resentful of the cause of her pain, and by early on Monday morning could no longer contain her feelings.

  ‘I hate it, I hate it, I hate it,’ she shouted at the doctor, as with Miss Bishop he set about the business of persuading the infant to emerge from her taut and resisting body, ‘I hate it!’

  ‘They all do, my dear,’ the doctor said cheerily. ‘There’s no woman yet who ever enjoyed her labour pains, but it'll be worth it for the baby.’

  ‘I hate it!’ she said again, wanting him to know it was the baby she hated, not merely the pain, but he ignored her, busying himself about her pelvis as though she didn’t inhabit it, as though she wasn’t a person at all, only a container which would deliver to him some treasure which he greatly desired.

  It was still not to be; after an hour of nagging her to push, they desisted, and told her the baby would not be born until tomorrow after all. She wept bitterly, as much from exhaustion as anything else.

  In midafternoon, when blessedly the pains seemed to have slackened, she suddenly felt an aching need for the comfort of someone beside her. Not Florrie or Bet, good to her as they were. To Hannah is seemed that they were like the doctor and Miss Bishop, concerned only with the baby and not at all with her. She needed someone who would hate the baby as much as she did, and would love her, only Hannah, herself.

  She told Florrie to send a telegram to her father. Had she not been exhausted with the past two days of labour she would never have considered it, but she was no longer herself, no longer sensible Hannah who knew what to do. She hadn’t been that Hannah for a long time, not since Daniel went away. She was a childish Hannah, lonely and frightened, and she wanted her mother badly. And in her mother’s absence she would have to settle for her father.

  The telegram was sent, but no word came, none at all. She wept into her pillow, her face becoming pouched and soggy, and when the doctor came again she shrieked at him in her distress, but still he only patted her head and told her not to fret, and then turned his attention once again to her belly and its content a though she were not there. She stopped trying, stopped caring, stopped thinking. There was just now, and the pain and the loneliness and the bitter anger at the anonymous lump inside her, that parasite that it was, drew what it needed from her helplessness and gave nothing back.