A Nest of Singing Birds

by A Nest of Singing Birds (retail) (epub)

  That’s when it all started, she thought. Lately she had felt that she couldn’t think, she could only feel, but now as images of her happy life before that time crowded into her mind, she wept bitter tears. Oh, John, she cried silently, what happened to us? What went wrong with our marriage?

  She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her sorrow like a physical pain, when suddenly there was a loud knock on the door. She held her breath and the knock was repeated. She made no attempt to get up. Then there was a knock on the window and she raised her head to see John’s grandmother looking through it.

  Hastily she dried her tears and went to the door. ‘Grandma, and on a day like this!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Well, if the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain,’ Sally said calmly. Anne led the way into the untidy living room, feeling ashamed.

  Julie was still in her nightdress, her face smeared with chocolate, and Laura’s face was even dirtier and she wore a crumpled, stained dress. Anne caught sight of herself in the mirror and recoiled in shock at the reflection of her red-rimmed eyes in her pale face, her lank hair and grubby jumper.

  Sally had taken off her coat and handed a small doll to each of the children. Now she drew Anne down beside her on the sofa. ‘If I’d known,’ Anne began and Sally interrupted, ‘Yes, if you’d known I was coming, you’d have cleared up and pretended everything was fine. Never mind the place. It’s not important. What’s wrong, girl?’

  Anne looked down, twisting her hands together, and Sally said, ‘Don’t say nothing’s wrong. We’re all worried about you, child, but the rest of them are afraid of butting in where they’re not wanted. I’m too old to care about that, and too fond of you. Tell me, girl.’

  Quite suddenly Anne burst into tears and Sally put her arms around her, saying nothing until Anne was calmer.

  ‘You’re not well, are you?’ she said finally and Anne began to pour out her feelings of despair and exhaustion. Sally listened in silence, then when Anne finished she said, What time does your doctor’s surgery finish?’

  ‘Half-past eleven,’ Anne said. ‘But the doctor can’t do anything. It’s my mind. I think I’m going out of my mind.’

  ‘No, you’re not, girl. It’s all to do with Julie’s birth. I’ve seen it before, worse than this. A poor girl in Rupert Hill murdered her newborn baby. Infanticide, they called it, but she wasn’t responsible for her actions.

  You go and have a bath and I’ll have a cup of tea ready when you come down. Then you can get yourself off to the doctor and tell him what you’ve told me. I’ll mind the children.’

  Before Anne had time to realise what was happening she found herself sitting in the doctor’s surgery. ‘Tell him exactly what you told me,’ Sally said as she speeded her on her way and Anne took her advice.

  Haltingly at first, then with more confidence as the doctor listened with interest, Anne told of her swings of mood, her exhaustion and the spells of depression when she felt that she was smothering under a black blanket.

  The doctor asked about Julie’s birth and Anne told him all she could remember about it. He consulted her card which lay on his desk with letters from the hospital pinned to it, then leaned back and looked at her.

  ‘I would say you are a classic case of postnatal depression,’ he said. ‘And now I’ll examine you and see what we can do about it.’ After the examination he weighed her and asked about her eating habits. ‘I’m too tired to eat,’ Anne confessed. ‘But I see that the children have enough.’

  ‘And what about your husband?’

  Anne blushed. ‘He works late every night, seven days a week, and eats in the factory canteen.’

  ‘You are seriously underweight so we must build you up then deal with your other problems,’ the doctor said. He wrote a prescription. ‘The small white tablets will steady your moods a little. Two three times a day. And I’ll arrange for you to see a consultant at the hospital clinic. The yellow tablets will give you the energy to eat. One every morning, but if you haven’t taken it by one o’clock don’t take it.’

  He smiled at Anne. ‘I’ll only give you fourteen tablets because they can be addictive but come back to see me in two weeks’ time.’

  Anne left the surgery feeling as though a weight had been rolled away from her. Postnatal depression. All she had gone through and all the time it was an illness that could be cured.

  When she reached home she found Laura and Julie bathed and in clean clothes. Sally had swept the hearth and tidied the room and had a pan of scouse on the gas stove. ‘I brought the makings in my basket,’ she said. ‘I knew you hadn’t been feeling like cooking.’

  Anne told her what the doctor had said and Sally said, ‘Yes, and if you hadn’t been so stiff-necked, hiding it from everyone, you’d have got help sooner. Why didn’t you tell John at least?’

  ‘He should have known,’ Anne muttered. ‘He wasn’t interested.’

  ‘Now that’s daft talk if ever I heard any,’ Sally said. ‘He knows there’s something wrong. You’ve only got to see how unhappy he is to realise that but how could he know what it was if you didn’t tell him?’

  ‘He’s never here,’ Anne said. ‘He works all hours. He hardly knows Laura and Julie.’

  ‘And why does he work himself into the ground? Because he’s not happy. I’m not sticking up for him, Anne, I know he’s pig-headed, but there’s a pair of you. Too proud for your own good. But I’ll say no more. You’ll have to work it out yourselves. You’d better take the yellow tablet, hadn’t you?’

  She stayed to have some scouse with Anne but said no more about her problems, only talked about the family.

  Minutes after Anne took the yellow tablet she felt a surge of energy through her body. ‘It’s amazing,’ she told Sally. ‘I can’t describe it. As though I’ve had something injected into me.’ She enjoyed her meal and jumped up to wash the dishes as soon as she finished.

  ‘Don’t overdo it now,’ Sally warned. She soon left, telling Anne that she was due to go to the pictures with her old friend, Peggy Burns.

  ‘We have the time of our lives now,’ she said. ‘Pictures twice a week and our tea in the Kardomah afterwards. Peggy says she used to want to live to look after her granddaughter who’s backward, but now Meg has a good husband to look after her Peggy says she wants to live to enjoy herself.’

  ‘And you both deserve to,’ Anne said warmly. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Grandma.’ She kissed Sally and the old lady patted her arm. ‘You’re a good girl, Anne,’ she said. ‘I’m just sorry you’ve had all this trouble. Sort it out with John now, love. Ta ra.’

  Anne watched her fondly as she walked briskly down the road, and turned back to her children, smiling.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Anne could still feel energy surging through her body and marvelled at the power of the small yellow tablet. She found that she could think more clearly too.

  She took the children upstairs for their rest and began to clean the house, surprised to see how dirty it had become after the months of neglect, but she enjoyed making it clean and bright again. As she worked she looked back over the months, trying to see why she and John had drifted so far apart.

  He’s been too busy chasing his dreams, she decided. Trying to solve the world’s problems and to be the crusader his grandad wanted him to be. I’ve been to blame too, she thought honestly. I couldn’t help this illness but I should have asked for help sooner, particularly from John. Grandma was right. I’m too proud for my own good.

  She sang as she cleaned the stairs and when she went up for the children Laura said, ‘Mummy, I heard you singing.’

  ‘I know, pet,’ she said, hugging her. ‘That’s because I feel happy.’ Or I will when I’ve talked to John, she thought.

  Laura slipped off the bed and stood beside her mother as Anne lifted Julie from the cot. ‘When I’m calling you hoo,’ she sang, and the baby echoed ‘Yoo hoo’.

  ‘Me and Julie can sing too
,’ Laura said. ‘Like the man on the wireless.’ Anne kissed them. My poor kids, she thought. They must have had a rotten time with my moods.

  I must have hurt Dad and the family too, she thought with remorse as she remembered Mona Dunne’s reproaches. I suppose they didn’t know what to make of my yarns. I must be a better liar than I thought.

  Gerry arrived home from school and Anne felt that he looked nervously at her. I suppose the poor kid doesn’t know what to expect. I’ve either been screaming at him or lying on the sofa whingeing, she thought.

  After the children were in bed she took out a red dress which had been a favourite with John. Freshly bathed and with her hair shining, she looked very different to the reflection in the mirror twelve hours earlier. She was dismayed to see how the dress hung on her now but left it on.

  She could still feel the effect of the yellow tablet but she was nervous and excited as she waited for John, determined to discuss things with him but uncertain how to do it.

  When he opened the living-room door and she saw him, thin and haggard with lines of strain and unhappiness on his face, her uncertainty vanished. Impulsively she went to him and kissed him and he said in a bewildered voice, ‘I thought you’d be in bed. What – what’s happened?’

  ‘Take your coat off. Come to the fire,’ she said gently. He threw off his overcoat and they sat together on the sofa. She kissed him again and involuntarily his arms went round her. ‘God, Anne, you’re thin,’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Grandma came this morning and made me go to the doctor’s. He said I’ve got postnatal depression.’

  ‘And that’s why you’re thin?’

  ‘I’m thin because I’ve been too tired and too miserable to eat,’ she said. ‘But the doctor’s given me some marvellous tablets that made me feel full of energy and some others to help with the depressed feelings. I’m going to see a specialist at the hospital too.’

  ‘But what is it – this illness?’ John asked.

  ‘It’s just what it says. Depression after having a baby. The doctor said something about hormones. Grandma says it happens to lots of girls, often worse than me. She knew a girl who murdered her baby because of it.’

  John cradled Anne in his arms. ‘Good God! And I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?’ he said. Anne sat up.

  ‘You should have seen it for yourself,’ she said indignantly but then she lay back again in John’s arms. ‘I don’t want to quarrel,’ she said more gently.

  ‘I thought you were eating with the children,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t just not eating. That was only part of it,’ Anne said. ‘It was these terrible despairing moods when I didn’t want to go on living.’

  John was silent, thinking, then he said quietly, ‘How long has this gone on? When did it start?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I think it might have started right away but I thought I felt rotten because I was just getting over the birth at first. Then when we got Julie home there was so much work and worry I thought it was that.’

  ‘I should have done more to help,’ he said.

  ‘I think I shut you out,’ Anne said honestly. ‘And then you were always wrapped up in Gerry and Laura seemed to cling to me. I used to think we were like two separate families in one room.’

  ‘But why? Why did you shut me out?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Partly because I was still mad at you because you were away that weekend, I suppose.’

  ‘You don’t know how bitterly I’ve regretted that, Anne,’ John said in a low voice. ‘Tony was right, I should never have gone.’

  ‘But you thought you were fighting for a better world for our children,’ Anne said.

  ‘Yes, but I could have done it without going off like that,’ he said. ‘I did honestly think you had two months more to go, Anne. That’s my only excuse.’

  ‘Never mind, it’s all water under the bridge now as Grandma would say. Gosh, John, I can’t tell you how glad I was to see her this morning. I was just about as low as I could be, wishing I could die…’

  ‘As bad as that?’ John said quietly. ‘And I didn’t even suspect. I must have been blind.’

  ‘We hardly saw each other,’ Anne said. ‘I was always so tired and you worked so late. Nobody else knew, not until just lately anyway. I didn’t go to see the family and if they wanted to come here I said I was going out. Mona Dunne told me off at Christmas for getting too involved up here and dropping the family. If she only knew!’

  ‘I should have spent more time at home,’ he said. ‘When I wasn’t working I was there doing union work or going straight on to a Peace Pledge meeting. No wonder we had no chance to talk.’

  He said nothing about the other reason, the fact that they slept in separate beds. Anne would have liked to lie safe at last in his arms, not bothering to talk any more, but felt that now that they had started they should talk out all their problems.

  She still felt full of energy but was uncertain how long the effect of the tablet would last. She was afraid that if it wore off she would be too tired to talk as they needed to.

  ‘If we’d been sleeping together we could have talked in bed,’ she said. ‘It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement but it’s just gone on and on.’

  ‘I thought it suited you,’ John said. ‘You seemed quite happy with it.’

  There was a trace of bitterness in his voice and Anne said defensively, ‘It certainly seemed to suit you and you were the one in a different bed.’

  ‘I know. But I wasn’t just drifting, I had a reason. It was better for us that way but never mind about that.’

  ‘What do you mean, never mind? If it concerns me, I’ve got the right to know.’

  ‘Just leave it, Anne. I think you can trust me to do what’s best for us.’

  ‘For us? So that means it concerns me?’ Anne said.

  ‘For me, then. Really, love, it’s better that you don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t patronise me,’ she said indignantly. ‘That’s the trouble with you. You think you should decide what’s best for us but it’s my life too. I should have some say.’

  ‘But you do,’ he protested. ‘You make all the decisions about the house and the money and everything.’

  ‘That’s not important,’ Anne said. ‘It’s other things. But you’ve always been the same. When we went out together you decided that people shouldn’t know we were courting. You didn’t ask me what I wanted to do.’

  ‘But that was to protect you because I was taking flak about fighting in Spain.’

  ‘But I didn’t care about that,’ Anne said. ‘Helen said she felt guilty because she and Tony had courting days and we didn’t, but we could have done. We could have had a proper courtship but you decided that it had to be a few furtive meetings as though we had something to be ashamed of. I hated it.’

  ‘And you’ve kept this in your mind all these years and never said anything,’ he said slowly.

  ‘I often meant to but it didn’t seem the right time,’ she said. ‘But now you’re doing it again. Making decisions for me. We should discuss things and decide together what to do.’

  ‘I still don’t think I should tell you but you’re forcing my hand,’ he said. ‘I hope you won’t be sorry. The doctor at the hospital told me that you nearly died from loss of blood. Only prompt treatment saved you and you shouldn’t risk another pregnancy for years, possibly for ever.’

  ‘And that’s the big secret?’ Anne said scornfully. ‘I knew I was very ill when Julie was born. I was anointed, remember.’

  ‘But you didn’t know what the doctor had told me.’

  ‘No, but the sister told me she didn’t want to see me back there. I don’t worry about things like that. Nurses and doctors don’t know everything and new things are being discovered all the time,’ Anne said.

  ‘But we daren’t risk another baby, love. I know the safe period seemed to work for us but the doctor didn’t seem to think much of it.
He said no form of contraception was one hundred per cent safe except complete abstinence. So you see why it’s easier for me if we sleep in separate rooms, don’t you?’

  ‘I thought you’d stopped loving me,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Oh, Anne, you didn’t. You couldn’t,’ he exclaimed, holding her close and kissing her fiercely. ‘It’s because I love you I daren’t take any risks, sweetheart.’

  She clung to him and murmured, ‘And I love you, John, and I don’t think it’s right for us to go on living like this.’ They kissed again then she said quietly, ‘I’m not worried about the risk, John. There was something different from the beginning about the third pregnancy but I was all right for the other two. Once I get over this business I’ll be perfectly healthy again.’

  ‘Don’t, Anne,’ he said. ‘I want you so much but we daren’t. Not yet. I’ll have to sleep in a different room. It’s the only way I can manage. And you’re still ill anyway.’

  He stood up, drawing her to her feet with him, and kissed her again. ‘This time I am making the decision, love, and you know why, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I know I’m not out of the wood yet,’ she said quietly. ‘But another few months – and then we’ll reconsider.’ She smiled at him. ‘I think we’ve talked enough for now. You’ve got work in the morning.’

  They went upstairs and kissed goodnight on the landing before going into their separate rooms. There was still much to be discussed, Anne felt, but she was happy that so much had been cleared up and the barrier between them had fallen so easily.

  She still felt energetic and found it difficult to sleep at first but was woken next morning by John putting a cup of tea beside her. ‘Goodbye, love,’ he whispered, slipping quietly out of the bedroom after kissing her ardently.

  Anne lay feeling confused then memory returned but she was dismayed by the lethargy she felt. I must have done too much yesterday, she decided. Fortunately she still kept to the wartime habit of carrying her handbag upstairs with her and groped in it for the yellow tablets.