Ten
That evening Eddie again fetched Pat Jessop from the village on his tractor.
‘I hope, for your sake, nobody sees us,’ Pat said.
Eddie shrugged. ‘They’ll just think I’m taking you to some outlying place ’cos of the weather.’
‘Which you are,’ she smiled. ‘Just as long as they don’t guess exactly where it is you’re taking me. Anyway, how is she?’
Pat’s face became anxious as Eddie explained what he had been obliged to do to feed the child. ‘She doesn’t want owt to do with the bairn, Pat. I’m worried sick.’
Pat put her hand briefly on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Eddie. If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll bring the child back here and look after it myself. I’ve a good neighbour who’d look after her whilst I’m out on my rounds. She’s seven of her own.’ Pat laughed. ‘She’d hardly notice another one to feed. Jessie’d take it all in her stride.’
Eddie smiled briefly, but said, ‘Well, I hope it won’t have to come to that.’
‘I hope so too. Come on, we’d better get back there and see what this night brings.’
To their disappointment, it brought no change in Anna’s attitude. True, Pat was able to make her feed the child, but she could not coax Anna to hold the baby nor even to look at it properly.
In the early morning Pat found herself in the neighbouring room, delivering a lamb whilst Eddie attended to another ewe.
In the cosiness of the cottage, cut off from the rest of the world by the swirling snow outside, Eddie and Pat smiled at each other. ‘It’s just like when I used to come and help you and your dad when we were little, Eddie.’
Eddie’s dark eyes held her gaze in the flickering light from the hurricane lamp. Her lovely face glowed in the soft light and her gentle eyes held such compassion, such understanding and, yes, love. He was sure he could see love in her eyes. ‘Aye,’ he said softly. ‘I remember.’ He sighed and murmured, ‘Oh Pat, if only—’
She touched his arm. ‘Don’t, Eddie,’ she whispered, a catch in her voice. ‘Please don’t say it.’
They gazed at each other for a long moment, each knowing instinctively what the other was thinking, before Pat stood up and deliberately broke the spell.
But it was a moment between them that she would cherish.
When Eddie and Pat left just before dawn, the cottage was quiet. Slowly, Anna sat up and looked across to where her daughter lay. The child was quiet now, full of her milk, which, the midwife had told her, was going to be plentiful.
‘You must drink plenty of milk yourself and eat well,’ Pat had urged her and had left a bowl of cereal and a glass of milk beside the bed. ‘And please, ducky, try to feed the bairn yourself.’
‘It – hurts,’ the girl had said. She had touched her own breasts. ‘They’re hard.’
‘It’s the milk coming.’ Deviously, and keeping her tone deliberately casual, Pat had added, ‘It would help that feeling if you fed her.’
But, yet again, Anna had turned away. Now, in the stillness of early morning, she lay back and drifted into sleep again but was awakened by the door opening very quietly. For once, she could not even summon up the terror that usually assailed her. She just lay there keeping her eyes closed. Whoever it was, she had not the strength to do anything about it. Just as before, she had not had the strength . . .
She winced, screwing up her eyes tightly to block out the terrifying memories.
Tony tiptoed across the floor, pausing to look down at the baby lying fast asleep in the chair. Then he came to stand by the bed.
‘Are you all right?’ he whispered, afraid to wake her if she was sleeping.
Anna nodded, but did not speak. She did not even open her eyes.
‘Where’s me dad?’
Again, there was no answer.
He tried again. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’
Silence. A little more loudly he repeated his question.
Anna licked her dry, cracked lips. ‘A girl.’
‘What are you going to call her?’
Anna let out a long, deep sigh that seemed to come from the very depths of her being. ‘I don’t know,’ she said dully.
‘You’ll have to call her something,’ the boy said practically and wrinkled his brow thoughtfully, as if the whole burden of naming the child rested with him. Perhaps it did, for the mother was uninterested. ‘What about Alice?’ he ventured. At school, the teacher had just been reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to the class. It was the first name that came to his mind.
There was no response from Anna. ‘There’s Rose or Janet or Mary . . .’ He ticked the suggestions off on his fingers, naming the girls in his class. At last, as if wearying of his persistence, Anna opened her eyes and said, ‘Maisie. Her name’s Maisie.’
‘Maisie,’ the boy repeated, sounding the name out aloud. ‘Maisie Woods. Yes, it sounds nice. I like it.’
The child began to whimper and Tony grinned. ‘See, she knows her name already.’
Very gently, he picked up the child and carried her to the bed. ‘She wants her mummy, don’t you, Maisie?’
He tried to lay the child in Anna’s arms, but she made no move to take her. ‘Come on,’ he said a little impatiently. ‘She’s hungry. She wants feeding.’
Anna stared down at the child. The baby’s crying ceased for a moment. Dark blue eyes stared at her mother. Whether or not the tiny infant could really see her, Anna did not know, but it seemed as if she could. The baby’s face worked, stretching and grimacing.
‘Look, she’s smiling at you,’ Tony said, his knowledge of human babies too sketchy to think otherwise.
Slowly, tentatively, Anna slipped her left arm beneath the baby’s head. With her right hand she gently pulled down the shawl and looked upon her daughter for the first time.
When Eddie returned to the cottage, Anna was feeding her daughter and Tony, without a shred of embarrassment, was sitting on the end of the bed watching her. To the young boy, it was perfectly natural to see a mother feeding her young.
Eddie felt relief flood through him. Only later would he learn that it had been his son’s prompting that had finally broken down Anna’s defences.
He came towards the bed, smiling. ‘All right, lass?’ Anna looked up, managed a weak smile and nodded.
‘I’ve brought a few things to stock up your pantry.’ He glanced at Tony. ‘You’d better get back home, lad. Your mam knows I’m going to be up here for the next few days. With the sheep,’ he added pointedly.
The boy stared at him for a moment, then looked away. He understood his father’s unspoken insinuation. ‘Can I – can I come up each day? I shan’t be going to school ’cos of the roads, but I can get up here, specially now your tractor’s made some tracks.’
‘Only if your mam ses you can.’
The boy nodded eagerly. ‘She’ll want to send you some food anyway.’
Eddie put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. ‘Now, you look after your mam. Let me know straight away if she needs owt. All right?’
The boy nodded, grinned at Anna and then reached out and gently touched the baby’s head. ‘’Bye, Maisie,’ he whispered softly.
As he left, Eddie asked, ‘Is that her name? Maisie?’
Anna’s voice was husky. ‘Yes. Tony – wanted me to decide on a name.’
Quietly, Eddie said, ‘It doesn’t matter yet, but you do know you’ll have to register her birth, don’t you? It’s the law.’
Anna looked at him with startled eyes. ‘How – how would I have to do that?’
‘Go into town and—’
‘Oh, I couldn’t.’
‘But you must register her.’
Her eyes were wide with fear. ‘I couldn’t go into town.’
Eddie sighed and let the matter drop for the moment. Perhaps he could get Pat to deal with the problem.
Pat beamed with delight when she entered the cottage that evening to find Anna sitting up in the bed, cuddling the child to her breast. She st
amped the snow from her boots and shook her coat.
‘It’s snowing again,’ Pat remarked as she crossed the room towards Anna. Making no direct comment about the change in the girl, she merely enquired, ‘All right, ducky?’
Anna nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said huskily, ‘for all you’ve done.’
Pat shrugged. ‘It’s me job, love.’ But the look in Anna’s dark eyes told the midwife that she understood Pat Jessop had done far more for her than was usual.
‘Now then,’ Pat said briskly, ‘we’ll banish Eddie to the other room while I help you have a good wash. I’ve brought you some clean sheets and a nightie. And there’s some clothes for the bairn. Now, off you go, Eddie, and see to your sheep.’ Pat smiled at him and flapped her hand to dismiss him.
Eddie grinned as he closed the door behind him, marvelling at how Pat Jessop got her own way without even raising her voice. With her merry face and good-humoured banter, people just did as she asked them without arguing. He shook his head thoughtfully, unable to prevent himself once more comparing Pat’s methods to his wife’s sharp, demanding ways.
With a minimum of fuss, Anna was soon washed and lying in a clean flannelette nightdress between crisp, sweet-smelling sheets. Then Pat turned her attention to the baby. For a while, Anna lay watching her bathing the child in a tin bath that Eddie had brought from his barn, murmuring endearments to the wriggling infant all the while.
‘You’re a lovely little thing, aren’t you, my precious. With those big eyes and such a lot of pretty hair.’ Pat glanced up at Anna and smiled. ‘I think she’s going to be a real carrot top, love. Just look at her pretty hair.’
Anna’s eyes widened and her lips parted in a gasp. With a noise that sounding suspiciously like a cry of despair, Anna turned her back on them both and buried her head in her pillow.
Pat watched her, biting her lip and frowning worriedly. Now what have I said? she thought.
She laid the child down in the deep armchair and went towards the bed. Touching the girl’s shaking shoulder, she said softly, ‘I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to upset you. Would you like to tell me about it?’
The girl’s only reply was to shake her head.
Pat sighed. In all her years of experience, she had never come across a case like this before. She’d dealt with mothers who had rejected their children initially, but once they came around, as she had believed Anna had done, then they didn’t often lapse back into withdrawing themselves from their child. Yet now, it seemed, she had unwittingly touched some raw nerve that had made this girl turn her back on her child once more.
She patted the girl’s shoulder again, feeling powerless. It was a feeling she did not often experience and certainly did not relish. She liked to be able to help people and, most of the time, she did. ‘I’m a good listener, love. And I never judge folk. Whatever it is that’s upsetting you, it’ll not be anything I’ve not heard before. So, if you ever want a kindly ear, you know where I am. Your secret – whatever it is – would be safe with me.’
The girl’s shoulder was rigid beneath Pat’s touch and she made no movement, gave no sign that she had even heard the nurse’s words.
Later, when Anna had fallen into a restless sleep and the baby was quiet, Eddie and Pat sat before the fire.
‘I said summat to upset her, Eddie,’ Pat whispered. ‘Just as she seemed to be coming round an’ all. I could kick mesen.’
‘What did you say?’
Pat sighed and shook her head. ‘I was just talking to her about how pretty the child is. With big, dark eyes and that she’s going to be a redhead.’
They sat in silence for a moment before Eddie said thoughtfully, ‘Perhaps it reminds her of someone. Someone she’d rather forget?’
Pat stared at him. ‘Oh. The – the father, you mean?’
Soberly, Eddie nodded. He opened his mouth to say more, but at that moment there was scuffling outside the back door.
With a worried expression, Eddie got up, ‘This can’t be Tony. Not at this time of night. Surely—’
As he moved across the room, the door was flung open and a rotund figure, wrapped in thick clothes and covered in snow, stepped into the kitchen. Behind her came a much smaller figure, a figure that scurried into the room and flung itself against Eddie.
‘I tried to stop her coming, Dad. Really I did,’ Tony cried, tears running down his cold face and mingling with the snow.
Eddie put his arm about the boy, ‘It’s all right, son. It’s all right,’ he said gently, as he looked up to face his wife.
Eleven
Bertha’s glance took in the girl in the bed, now awakened and sitting up, her eyes fearful. The commotion woke the baby, who began to wail, and Bertha’s face contorted into a look of loathing. She swung round and, with surprising agility, flew at her husband, her arms flailing, her hands reaching to slap and punch and scratch. He tried to defend himself as her blows rained upon him, whilst Tony pulled at her coat, crying, ‘Mam, Mam, don’t. Please, don’t.’
Pat hurried forward to intervene, but Bertha shrieked, ‘You keep out of this, Pat Jessop. I might ’ave known you’d be in on this.’ Then she raised her hand and dealt her husband a stinging blow on his cheek that sent him reeling. Before he had time to recover his senses, Bertha had whirled about and was moving to where the child lay, her hands outstretched, her eyes murderous.
Pat moved, but there was someone even quicker than she was. Anna flung back the bedclothes and seemed to fly across the room. She snatched up her child and hugged her close. ‘Don’t you touch her. Don’t you dare lay a finger on her.’
Her eyes blazing, she faced the irate woman and even Bertha faltered in the face of the lioness protecting her young.
‘Bertha, please—’ Pat began, but Bertha now turned and vented her anger on the midwife.
‘I told you, keep out of this. You’ve done enough. I suppose you know all about his goings on, do you? And if you know, then the whole village’ll know. Aye, an’ half Ludthorpe too, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘You’ve no cause to talk to me like that, Bertha.’ Pat bristled. ‘And you’re not being fair to Eddie—’
‘Oho, “Eddie”, is it? Summat going on between the two of you, is there?’ Her face twisted into an ugly sneer. ‘Now the war’s over you’ll have to look a bit nearer home for fellers, won’t you?’
Pat was furious. ‘How dare you—?’
‘Oh, I dare all right. It was common gossip about you cycling up to that RAF camp and afore your husband was killed, an’ all.’ Her mouth twisted and she flung her arm out towards Anna. ‘You’re no better than that trollop there, Pat Jessop, so don’t try to play the innocent with me.’
Pat was shaking her head sadly now. ‘You’re not right in the head, Bertha. Do you know that? You’re twisted, saying such things. I’m a district nurse, for heaven’s sake and the camp was in my district.’
Bertha’s mouth curled with disbelief. ‘Expect me to believe that? They’d got their own doctors and nurses. So why would they need your – ’ she paused deliberately – ‘services?’
‘Oh, there’s no reasoning with you, Bertha. I was often called to the families of RAF personnel who lived near the camp. And I’ll tell you something, whether you want to hear it or not. I don’t care what you say about me, but you’ve no call to make such horrible insinuations about Eddie.’ Pat shook her forefinger in Bertha’s face. ‘You’ve got a good man there, and you’re a fool not to see it.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Come off it, Bertha. I’ve known Eddie all me life. Do you really expect me to call him “Mr Appleyard” now? ’Cos if you do, then you’ve another think coming.’
All the time the heated exchange was taking place between the two women, Tony had clung to his father. Anna clutched her baby to her, patting the child’s back and trying to soothe her crying.
‘If you’re so clever, then, Nurse Jessop, p’raps you’d like to tell me what’s really going on then with this girl
here?’
‘Like he told you, Bertha. She was in the marketplace in town with nowhere to go and he took pity on her. That’s all.’
Bertha snorted. ‘If you believe that, then it’s you that’s the fool. Not me.’
She turned and held out her hand to her son. ‘Come on, Tony. You an’ me’s going home. You’re not to come up here again. You hear me?’
Tony cast a helpless glance at his father. ‘But – but we haven’t told him why we came.’ He glanced nervously at his mother, yet he was determined to speak out. ‘It’s the sheep in the barn. There’s one or two of them dropping their lambs. And one – well – you ought to come, Dad.’ His voice petered away as his mother added, ‘Oh, he’s far more important things to do up here, Tony love. I see that now. And I also see why you tried to stop me coming.’
The boy hung his head and shrank against his father, but Bertha was holding out her fat arms towards her son. ‘But I don’t blame you, lovey. It’s not your fault. You’re not old enough to understand. Come on, love. Come to your mammy.’
Eddie gripped the boy’s shoulder understandingly and then gave him a gentle push. ‘Go on, son,’ he said quietly.
‘But what about the sheep, Dad?’
Eddie nodded. ‘I’ll come down.’
With obvious reluctance, the boy moved towards his mother. She put her arm about his shoulders and drew him to her. Her eyes narrowed as she said, ‘You and your carryings on, Eddie, are one thing, but involving your own son in your lies and deceit is quite another. I’ll never forgive you for that. Never.’
And then she was gone, out into the wild night, dragging the boy with her and leaving the three adults staring after her, mesmerized and beginning to wonder if it had all really happened.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Anna began. ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have let you bring me with you that night. I’ll go.’
Red Sky in the Morning Page 8
