The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers

by Angela Patrick

  I had to beg and plead, but eventually Sister Teresa permitted them a short visit to the nursery to see him. We were escorted to the nursery door where, under Sister Teresa’s beady eye, they were allowed to gaze upon my tiny sleeping infant – no touching, no holding, no cuddling, just a brief look – and, as was the way at Loreto, only from a distance.

  Chapter Eight

  On Boxing Day I was allowed out. Being permitted to escape the confines of the convent for more than a brief trip to the shops was probably only marginally less difficult than escaping from a high security prison. Although there were no physical barriers to prevent girls going out, such was the power of the nuns that no one dared put their authority to the test. In order to secure my day release, my brother John had to make an application for me to be granted permission by telephone, and then had to wait while the nuns gave it consideration.

  On the whole, visits were discouraged, and would be granted only if the nuns couldn’t find a reason not to allow them, as when Ann had been allowed to attend a family funeral. Since it was Christmas, however, my visit would be sanctioned if I could find a girl willing to attend to Paul’s feeds during the few hours I would be away.

  Though I knew my family – well, John and Emmie, certainly – were keen on me making the visit home, privately I had mixed emotions. Yes, I’d felt homesick on Christmas Day without family members around me, but now I had a new familial bond to consider. The one highlight of the day had been spending a small part of it with my baby. Now I felt terribly anxious about leaving him.

  I was also all too aware, given the contact we’d had thus far, that I would be expected not to talk about Paul and, while I was there, to behave as if he didn’t exist, as if none of what had happened to me had taken place. The reality, of course, was that he was my whole world and I was his; I was the only thing he had in the world.

  Christmas Day had been relatively low key at the convent, though we were determined to celebrate our babies’ first Christmases as best we could. We knew it would be our last Christmas with them. For a couple of the girls, it would also be their last precious days together.

  I had been down to the village and bought Paul a couple of Christmas presents, withdrawing a little money from my Post Office account. I’d bought him a teething ring, and a little soft toy – a white fluffy dog that now sat at the bottom of his cot. I’d also given him a rosary from the Catholic Repository – every Catholic child was given one – which I intended would go with him once he was adopted.

  A rosary is an important Catholic artefact and very personal; though I still have my mother’s, they are often put in a person’s coffin with them. I made a conscious decision to keep Paul’s in the end – almost as if I was retaining a little piece of him. Whenever I said prayers on his rosary, those prayers would be for him and would bring us together, if not in body, at least in spirit.

  For most of the girls, normal chores were suspended on Christmas Day, but as my job in the milk kitchen still needed to be done, I dealt with all the bottles as usual. I didn’t mind. My frequent visits to the nursery meant that even if I couldn’t hold my dear baby while I was doing my duties, I could see him.

  The nuns softened towards us slightly on Christmas morning. There was no Christmas tree, as it would have been considered superficial on a day that was supposed to be celebrating Christ’s birth, but they provided crackers for our Christmas lunch of turkey and plum pudding, and they’d allowed us to make and put up some paper chains.

  The trappings of Christmas didn’t really matter. What mattered most was that we were lucky enough to share this Christmas with our babies – an accident of timing, but a precious one. It felt as if we were living in a cocoon, with the outside world, for this brief time, non-existent.

  Boxing Day, in contrast, drew me back to the real world. John and Emmie arrived in John’s maroon Ford Anglia at 11.00 in the morning to drive me to Sam’s bungalow – my former home – where the family, including my childless Aunt Ellen and Uncle Jack, traditionally spent the day.

  I had asked one of the pregnant girls to look after Paul. She was a shy teenager called Carol; she was keen to be helpful, and I’d given her a list of all the things she needed to know.

  By now Paul and I had developed quite a routine together. Carol must give him half his feed first – that was important, as he’d always be screaming for his bottle when I got to him – wind him halfway through, then change his nappy. She must remember to put on a little zinc and castor oil cream, then give him the remainder of his feed, before swaddling him securely and laying him back in his cot on his side.

  Despite knowing he could come to no harm in my absence, it was disturbing to be putting physical distance between us voluntarily. As I put my warm coat on and went into the hall to wait for Emmie and John’s arrival, it felt as if I’d left a part of myself behind.

  It was a bitterly cold day that had begun with a deep frost, which never really looked like it would thaw. As I stepped out to greet them, I could feel the icy air catch in my nostrils; it was such a contrast to the air within the convent walls. I realised I had barely ventured into the outside world since the birth.

  ‘Goodness!’ said Emmie, leaping out of the car and rushing up to hug me. ‘You don’t look at all as if you’ve just had a baby! I can’t believe you got your figure back so quickly!’ She let me go and led me back to the waiting car and my brother. ‘Look at her, John,’ she said as she opened the door for me. ‘Already back in her normal clothes!’

  ‘What I have of them,’ I said, as I got into the warm car. ‘That’s one of the things I really have to do today: bring some more clothes back with me. But you’re right. It’s amazed me. My bump must have been all baby!’ That, I reflected, plus a subsistence diet, a heavy physical work schedule, many, many sleepless nights and a great deal of appetite-suppressing heartache. But it was so nice to see my brother and sister-in-law that I didn’t want to gripe. At least with them I could be myself. At least with them I didn’t have to hang my head in shame.

  ‘What time do you have to be back?’ John asked, as we sped away.

  ‘Nine o’clock,’ I said. ‘Sharp.’

  My brother grinned at me through the rear-view mirror. It was so good to see him. ‘Absolutely no problem,’ he replied. ‘Wouldn’t want to be in Reverend Mother’s bad books . . .’

  It was strange to be speeding along the deserted country roads in my brother’s car – strange but also lovely. The adult world seemed to be slumbering. Trees twinkled behind net curtains and chimneys belched smoke, but outside it was a child’s world made sparkly by the frost. We passed children on bikes and scooters, red-nosed and laughing. We passed others on foot, kicking balls and walking dogs. I felt a rush of emotion on seeing a small boy with black hair and realising I wouldn’t see my own child like this. I would just have to imagine it, I thought bleakly.

  But Emmie and John’s chatter brought me back to the present; it was a real tonic to see them and to have a chance to spend time with them. I had never felt uncomfortable in their presence and they had never been anything but sympathetic and supportive. It was a chance to catch up properly with what John had been up to before being delivered to the less relaxed setting of my mother’s house. He had left the army and, following his national service, had returned to his stockjobber firm in the London Stock Exchange, which he told me he was really enjoying again. And Emmie, always so warm and such a friend to me, was her usual bright and chatty self.

  I had been right about the likely atmosphere on arrival. As soon as we went into the house, I felt anxious and uncomfortable. I had not set foot in the bungalow, even to visit, since the previous summer when I’d left to live at June’s. I felt disorientated to be there again now. I couldn’t quite believe that this would be where I’d be returning after the adoption, that I’d be living here again, with my mother and Sam, just the three of us. It wasn’t simply an emotional response: after the Victorian spaciousness of the convent, the bungalow felt
overwhelmingly claustrophobic and confined.

  I don’t think it was any easier for my mother and stepfather than it was for me, and consequently, though everyone was superficially cheerful and cordial, it seemed almost like an out-of-body experience, particularly in my so recently post-natal state.

  Paul was on my mind constantly. Presents were exchanged and opened, of course – I got new clothes from John and Emmie, practical slippers and pyjamas and some money from my mother – and I couldn’t help wondering: would there be something for me to take back for him? At the same time I already knew the answer to that question. Of course there wouldn’t be any presents for my baby. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. How could you buy a present for a child who couldn’t even be acknowledged? Whose very existence was a terrible guilty secret? It felt so strange and so sad to be sitting in my own home, with my own family, and being unable to mention the very thing that mattered most to me in the whole world. No one, at any point – not even fleetingly, as I walked in through the front door – so much as asked me how he was.

  Were it not for the presence of the ‘elephant in the room’, it would have passed as a perfectly normal Boxing Day. As I’d not been there on Christmas Day, much of the time was spent on the normal Christmas rituals, such as having a big lunch, followed by the presents, followed by tea, then several rounds of cards.

  I’d been told I must be back in the convent by 9 p.m., so we started to think about setting off around 7.30, as we needed to be away by 8 at the latest. John would take me alone, and return for Emmie on the way home. I was getting anxious to leave, in any case, because the image of Paul had been tugging at me constantly, drawing me home to him as surely as if it were his own tiny hand pulling mine.

  How would he be? Would he have missed me? Would he be fretful and distressed? I had found it hard to relax, feeling so much like a visitor in my own home, and I was keen to return to the safe, familiar haven of the convent, with its community of other mothers and reassuring routine, where I realised I felt so much more at home. But most of all, I ached for my little baby.

  It had long since grown dark, and we’d closed the curtains. When we opened the door, it was to find the road outside cloaked in an impenetrable fog.

  ‘Oh, my,’ exclaimed my mother to John, as she looked out. ‘How on earth are you going to be able to drive Angela back in that?’

  ‘Dear me,’ agreed Sam, coming up to peer over her shoulder. ‘That’s not looking too clever, is it?’

  ‘I have to get back,’ I responded quickly, panicking that they might suggest I sleep there for the night. ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ John said then, reassuring us. ‘Probably just local. You’ll see. Soon as we’ve set off, it’ll clear.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ my mother persisted. ‘It looks terribly thick to me.’

  ‘Yes, I’m completely sure,’ he said firmly, and I was so grateful for his firmness. I don’t know if he felt as confident as he sounded, but I could tell he sensed my anxiety about getting back to Paul. ‘Come on, Angela,’ he said, picking up my bag of presents and clothes, and nudging me out through the door. ‘Let’s get going. Don’t want to be late for Reverend Mother!’

  But it very soon transpired that we would be. As we drove north, towards the convent, the fog only increased in opacity, and we were reduced to driving along the road at little better than walking speed. After about an hour even John, who up until then had been so sure all would be well, began to express doubts about whether we’d make it.

  ‘There’s just no let up, is there?’ he said, peering blindly into the white swirls in front of us. He glanced across at me, conscious of me checking my watch every two minutes. ‘I’m sorry, sis, I daren’t go any faster, I really don’t. If there’s a car ahead going slower—’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine,’ I said. ‘Just as long as I get there eventually.’ I was terrified he’d decide to turn back.

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, we’ll get there,’ he said. ‘Even if it is in the small hours.’

  I was so grateful. But I also felt wretched for making him do this for me. This was all my fault, every single bit of it. If I hadn’t made the visit, if I hadn’t been in the convent, if I hadn’t put myself in this terrible situation in the first place . . . But I had to get back. The thought of leaving Paul overnight was unthinkable. However long it took, I had to get there.

  The one thing I couldn’t bear to do was to telephone and warn them I’d be late, even had we managed to spot a public phone box by the road. Just the thought of their admonishments – ‘You should have planned better! You should have thought about the consequences! You shouldn’t have been so cavalier! What about your responsibility to your baby?’ – was enough to put the idea of phoning out of my mind. It would be crazy to detour to try to find a phone box, in any case. No, better just to get there and face the music.

  It was almost midnight by the time the convent finally came into view, appearing like some sort of ghostly Gothic mansion as it took shape beyond the swirling mist. The fog was almost opaque still, but through it we could see the lamp burning above the front door and the glow from an interior light casting a yellowy haze from beyond a window. Apart from that, the building lay in darkness.

  I was deeply distressed by now, not only because I feared how my poor little boy had fared without me, but also because I knew that Sister Teresa and the Reverend Mother would both be furious.

  I said tearful goodbyes to John – I simply couldn’t thank him enough for getting me back – and wished him the one thing he probably couldn’t count on: an uneventful and safe journey home.

  ‘I’ll wait in the car, though,’ he reassured me, having tried but failed to convince me that he should come to the door with me.

  I was insistent. He had done more than enough already, I thought, and didn’t need a dressing down for his efforts.

  While he waited, engine idling, I turned towards the front step and approached the front door, knocking gently at first, and then with increasing strength, as it occurred to me that they had probably given up on me altogether and gone to bed, assuming I’d decided not to bother coming back at all. In which case, I realised anxiously, I could be here for some time, since I doubted if anyone would hear me.

  Even though I was expecting Sister Teresa’s wrath, I’d underestimated it. She was almost beside herself with anger.

  ‘Where on earth have you been, girl!!?’ she barked at me, her crêpy, wrinkled face almost as white as the mist and her dark eyes flashing daggers as she dragged me inside.

  She didn’t seem to want to waste time on explanations or recriminations, and immediately dismissed my attempts to explain what had happened. ‘I don’t want to hear your excuses,’ she hissed at me, obviously mindful that we were now inside and might wake people. ‘Just go to the nursery and sort out your baby!’ she snapped. ‘He’s been crying all day. All day long, Angela. And all evening, too, and he’s disturbing all the other babies. Causing such trouble to everyone! I really don’t know what’s the matter with him. Now, hurry!’

  Why did she need to tell me that he’d been crying all day? It was so cruel, so needless, so unnecessary. And her tone was so mean. It was as if I’d produced some freak of nature, sent to try them and not, as was probably the case, that my baby was just miserable without me and had no other means to communicate that fact. No idea why he was crying? How ridiculous!

  I needed no further encouragement to get away from her, and hurried off, as instructed, to take care of Paul. He had indeed been crying. I could see that straight away. His eyes were puffy and his face scarlet. As I picked him up and held him to me, I could feel his little heartbeat, banging furiously against my chest.

  I quickly changed him, which helped to settle him, conscious of Sister Teresa’s silhouetted presence in the doorway like some grim reaper. I could hardly see, because she’d only allowed me to turn on one tiny lamp, so I settled him with nervous fin
gers, groping around in the dark. I so wanted to hold him to me, stay with him, tell him I was sorry for having left him and promise I’d never leave him alone like that again.

  Once I was done, under the glowering scrutiny of Sister Teresa, I tiptoed quietly up the stairs to the attic dormitory, where I lay down on my bed, still in my coat and clothes, and wept my heart out. I felt exhausted, but my mind was full of guilt. How would I be able to cope with letting another man and woman have my baby? How could anyone look after him as well as I could? My unexpectedly long absence had made the answer painfully clear: no one could.

  Chapter Nine

  Just as Christmas had, the New Year passed very quietly. It was a day that was spent in much the same way as any other. Though it heralded the start of a new year, all I could think of, as we sat in the common room on New Year’s Eve, was how very different it felt from the previous one.

  The London I’d known at the end of 1962 wasn’t swinging quite yet. It was an innocent time – more like an extension of the 1950s. The clothes were getting more colourful, the pleasures were simple, and the music was upbeat and optimistic. My principal pleasures had been similarly chaste: going to coffee bars, listening to pop music and dancing.

  Guthrie and Co.’s offices were on Gracechurch Street, in the City, just a short walk from the River Thames and the Monument. The previous New Year’s Eve I’d taken my going-out clothes into work with me that morning; once I’d finished work, Tricia, my closest friend at the time, and I got changed in the office. We often went out straight from work, rather than going home first. Because London is such a big city and many people commuted long distances, it made no sense to travel all the way out and return again.

  We rarely ate in the evenings and existed mostly on cake. With luncheon vouchers being one of the perks of our jobs, we’d usually have a proper meal and a pudding at lunchtime. This left us free to spend the evening dancing and having fun. On New Year’s Eve, we headed to Trafalgar Square, so we could join the growing throng assembling around the giant tree between the fountains, then as now a gift to London from Norway.