A great weight rolled off Ellen’s soul.
‘Yeah,’ she said, hardly more than whispering. Then added with conviction, ‘Yeah, you’re right. That’s how it was.’
‘He’s a good man, your dad. A hero.’
‘Yeah.’ The trouble was, heroes could be uncomfortable to live with.
She did not notice Harry looking at her sideways, studying her face.
‘I was surprised you gave it up,’ he said.
‘But I couldn’t go on, not now,’ she said.
‘Of course not, but you could study in the evening, couldn’t you? Read books, that sort of thing? Not just throw it all over now. But then perhaps you weren’t really serious about it.’
‘I was – I am!’
Harry shrugged. ‘Doesn’t look much like it to me.’
Ellen was stung. How could he say that?
‘How am I supposed to study when I’m at work all day and helping Mum in the evening?’ she shouted. ‘Are you saying I shouldn’t help Mum? Fine daughter I’d be!’
Harry was unmoved. ‘If you’d really wanted to, you’d’ve found a way. I think maybe you was finding it all too difficult at school.’
He picked up a piece of slate and tossed it up idly, watching as it turned over in flight before landing back in his hand
Ellen was stung. How could he say that?
‘I was not. I was fourth in my class.’
‘Why give it up, then?’
‘I haven’t. I – I’m studying in my spare time,’ she lied.
‘First I heard of it.’
‘Well, that just goes to show you don’t know everything, don’t it?’ Ellen said, and flounced off before he could ask for details.
With a sideways flick, Harry sent the piece of slate skipping over the surface of the water. He smiled to himself, showing his strong white teeth.
The first thing that struck Ellen as she slammed back into the house was the warmth. It wrapped round her like a pair of welcoming arms, soothing all her anger and confusion. She went into the kitchen, where her mother was just making a pot of tea.
‘The range is alight!’ she exclaimed.
She went over to it, letting the blessed heat sink into her chilled body.
‘Ain’t it lovely?’ Her mother looked happier than Ellen had seen her for weeks. Her face had got back its round look, instead of being strained and haggard.
A lighted range meant hot food, hot water, clean clothes, a bath – Ellen shivered with pleasure at the thought of a bath.
‘I put a rice pudding in the oven,’ her mother said.
Ellen’s stomach growled at the thought. A rice pudding. Heaven!
‘But how . . .?’ she began. There had been no coal in the house when she left.
‘Harry brought us round a sack. Weren’t that kind of him?’ her mother explained.
‘Harry!’ At once all the confusion rolled back.
Daisy was watching her reaction. ‘He was asking for you. Did he find you?’
Ellen nodded.
‘Oo. What did he want? What did he say?’
‘It’s none of your business,’ Ellen snapped. She felt perilously near to tears, though she hardly knew why.
‘Oo.’ Daisy was skipping about, her eyes gleaming at the scent of some gossip. ‘You’re blushing. You are! Come on, tell us. You’re in love with him, ain’t you? Ellen’s in love with Harry Turner –’
‘Shut up!’ Ellen shouted at her, and ran upstairs.
She flung herself on the mattress and burst in tears. She hated Harry Turner. He was bossy and interfering and insulting. He had abandoned her for Siobhan. He was kind and thoughtful. He had rescued her father from certain death. She did not know what to make of him. She did not know why he had come to talk to her today, or why she was so upset now. One thing was clear, though. He was wrong about why she gave up school.
‘I’ll show him,’ she muttered, when at last she became a little calmer. ‘I’ll show him. Finding it too hard, indeed. We’ll see about that.’
Ellen went to bed that night pink from a blissful bath in the tin tub in front of the range, her hair clean and shining, and new purpose in her heart. She was going to prove Harry wrong if it was the last thing she did.
But sleep escaped her. She could hear her mother getting up and walking round the front bedroom, and the creak of her bedsprings as she turned in bed. Sometime in the early hours she went to sleep, only to jerk awake again, her heart beating wildly. She listened. All was quiet. Wide awake, she lay staring into the darkness. Beside her in the narrow bed Daisy slept, dead to the world, and a couple of feet away under the window she could just make out the hump under the blankets that was Jack.
Then she heard something that made her blood freeze. From her mother’s room came a low groan.
Ellen slid out from under the covers, trying not to wake Daisy. Shivering in the penetrating cold, she felt around for a shawl and hugged it to her shoulders, then carefully eased her way out of the room. With two beds in it, the door could not be fully opened. She tiptoed the two steps across the landing and tapped on her mother’s door.
‘Mum? You all right?’
There was a pause, then, ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m quite all right. You go back to bed.’
Ellen hesitated. ‘I thought I heard a noise, Mum. Is there anything wrong?’
‘No, no. I’m fine.’
Then it hit her. Of course.
‘Mum, is it the baby? Is the baby coming? Can I do anything?’
‘Not yet, lovey. It’ll be hours yet. I’m just trying to rest while I can.’
Ellen knew what she was going to do, and it certainly was not go back to bed. Since Jack, her mother had had four miscarriages and a stillbirth. She could not bear the thought of another tragedy. This baby was going to live. She padded downstairs to the parlour, felt for her coat and boots and let herself out of the house. Two minutes later she was pounding on the O’Donaghues’ door. For what seemed like an age, nothing happened. Then the window was forced slowly up and a tousled head looked out.
‘Who is it?’ Brian’s voice was bleary with sleep.
‘It’s me, Ellen Johnson. Can Mrs O’Donaghue come, please? My mum’s having her baby.’
Brian’s head disappeared. There was a muttering from within the house, then he was back.
‘The missus says, go on home and she’ll be along in ten minutes.’
‘Oh thank you, thank you, I’ll go right away.’
Relieved, Ellen ran back. Mrs O’Donaghue had no nursing training, but all the women in the street swore by her. When it came to delivering babies, they claimed, she was better than any doctor.
The hours that followed went slowly. Ellen got breakfast for all of them and went upstairs to see how her mother was getting along. Mrs O’Donaghue met her at the bedroom door.
‘No need for you to hang around here all day long. It’s going to be a slow job. You get off to work and send them kids to school early.’
Ellen tried to argue, but Mrs O’Donaghue’s word was the law when it came to these matters.
‘You’re going to need the money, and you know what’ll happen if you take a day off work – they’ll give you the sack. There’s plenty round here to help me if need be.’
In turn, Ellen chivvied Jack and Daisy out.
‘You’re too young to stay around. You get off to school and maybe when you get back you’ll have a little brother or sister,’ she told them.
But she felt like a traitor, closing the door behind her and leaving her mother there.
All the way up the street, the women were scrubbing their doorsteps and sweeping down the strips of pavement in front of their houses. The news had reached them long ago.
‘How’s your mum coming along, Ellen?’
‘What’s Mrs O’Donaghue say?’
‘Just let me know if there’s anything you need.’
‘I got some lovely little baby clothes she can have. I’ll take ’em over. I won’t be needing
them for a few months yet.’
‘Send them kids up to us for their tea if it’s not here by then. They can always spend the night, if you like.’
The reassuring strength of the street was around her. She could see and feel and hear it on all sides. They would not let anything dreadful happen to her mother. But it did not entirely assuage the fear that clutched at her heart. Her mum was getting old to have babies. She was a granny. Anything could happen.
At work, she could not concentrate. She kept dropping the jars she was supposed to be labelling. One slipped right through her fingers and smashed on the floor, a red mess of smelly pickled cabbage and fragments of glass.
The forewoman came snarling over to her. ‘Johnson! I told you about that before. That’s sixpence off your wages.’
The girls around her sprung to her defence.
‘Oh, Mrs Biggs, have a heart. Her mum’s having a baby.’
‘Yeah, she’s that worried. She can’t help it.’
The forewoman’s grim features softened. ‘That right?’ she asked.
Ellen nodded. ‘Started last night.’
‘And her dad’s up the hospital,’ another girl chipped in.
‘All right, all right. Just let me get my violin out. We’ll all be in tears in a minute.’ Mrs Biggs fixed Ellen with her boiled-gooseberry eyes. ‘I’ll overlook it this time, but just be more careful for the rest of the day, right?’
‘Yes, Mrs Biggs.’
‘Yes, Mrs Biggs, no Mrs Biggs,’ they all mouthed behind the woman’s back, and giggled. But Ellen felt no better and the day seemed to go on for ever.
Released at last, she pushed her way through the hundreds pouring out of the factory gates and ran back through the drizzling rain. She paused at the greengrocer’s where Daisy worked after school.
‘Daisy!’
Her sister looked up from carrying out a pile of boxes.
‘How’s Mum? Has she had it?’
Daisy shook her head. She looked peaked and anxious. ‘No. Mrs O’Donaghue said it’s going to take ages yet. Said I ought to try and bring home something to make a nice pan of soup.’
‘Oh – good idea. See you later, Daisy.’
Ellen hurried on, worry gnawing at her guts.
Trinidad Street was practically empty. A couple of little girls were wheeling a pram with two crying babies inside, and a group of boys were playing leapfrog, slipping on the wet cobbles as they landed. Jack broke away from them and ran up to her.
‘Mrs O’Donaghue says I’m to go to Jimmy Croft’s for tea. Is that right, Ellen?’
Ellen supposed it was. It didn’t do to have kids hanging round the house at these times. Mrs O’Donaghue had certainly got things well organized.
‘Mind you thank Mrs Croft proper,’ she told him.
Jimmy appeared at his side. ‘My mum don’t mind. She says the more the merrier,’ he said.
‘Good, thanks.’ Ellen left them and sprinted the last twenty yards home.
The place seemed to be full of women. They were all sitting round the kitchen table drinking tea and talking in low voices charged with meaning. They stopped abruptly when Ellen entered.
‘How’s my mum?’
There was a brief pause. ‘Oh, she’s coming along fine, dearie. Just going to take a while, that’s all.’
The group of heads nodded.
Ellen knew they were lying. ‘I want to see her.’
‘Not now, dearie. You’re too young. Your time’ll come soon enough.’
‘But she’s my mum. I can help her. She needs me.’
‘She’s got all us here to help her. Been one of us with her all day, there has, and will be all night. She won’t never be left on her own; you know that.’
They meant well, she realized, but they were treating her like a kid. She hated every one of them – sitting in her house like a lot of old witches, cackling over their own deliveries while upstairs her mother was in pain.
From above came a cry, hardly recognizable. Ellens’ heart contracted in fear. She whisked out of the kitchen, pounded up the stairs and raced into the front bedroom. There she stopped short just inside the door. Her mother was lying on her back on a dishevelled bed. There were no covers on her, her knees were raised and spread, and her nightgown was pulled up to the great swelling belly so that she could see her naked legs, pale and blotched with purple veins, and between them a bulging red wound fringed with hair. Ellen stood and stared, shocked rigid.
‘What you doing here? You get off downstairs.’
She had not even seen Mrs O’Donaghue. Now she ignored her. Still gaping in horrified fascination, she forced her frozen limbs to move. Slowly she walked across the cramped room to the head of the bed. Her mother looked years older, her face flushed, her cheeks sunken, her greying hair soaked in sweat. She turned her head as Ellen approached and for a few heart-stopping moments there was no recognition in her glazed eyes.
‘Mum?’ Ellen’s throat was dry. The word came out as a croak.
Her mother’s look sharpened. ‘Ellen? You didn’t ought to be here, love.’ The strained whisper was not at all like her mother’s usual voice.
‘Mum, are you all right?’ Even as she said it she knew it was a stupid question.
‘I will be, lovey, as soon as –’ She broke off, her face contracting in pain.
Instinctively, Ellen clasped the hand that opened and closed on the sheet. The sweating fingers grasped at her, clenching as the pain grew. A low moan broke from her mother’s lips, swelling to a cry. Her head thrashed from side to side. Terrified, Ellen could only watch and wait, her hand crushed, expecting every moment that her mother was going to die. Then, just as she thought she could not bear it any longer, the grip on her hand relaxed, the cry died away.
Mrs O’Donaghue mopped her mother’s forehead with an old cloth. She fixed Ellen with a look that said clearly I told you so.
‘Right, you’ve seen what you come to see, and a lot of good may it do you. Now off you go. You’re not doing your ma no good staying here. And while you’re about it you can tell them downstairs as I could do with a fresh bowl of water and another nip of gin.’
Dumbly, Ellen nodded. She bent down and kissed her mother’s damp cheek.
‘Just hold on, Mum. We all love you.’
There was no answer from the exhausted woman on the bed.
The women downstairs took one look at her face and bit back the scolding they were about to give her. Ellen delivered the message. Milly Turner put an arm round her shoulders.
‘You come back with me, dearie. Have tea with us. Florrie’d like to have you to chat to.’
Ellen shook her head. ‘I’m staying here.’
The women argued and cajoled, but nothing would move her. She could not possibly leave now, not after having seen what her mother was going through.
There was always somebody there. The neighbours she had hated so fiercely earlier were now a lifeline. True to their promise, the women came in and out, seeing to their own families then taking it in turns to relieve Mrs O’Donaghue or sit with Ellen. It seemed to her that as evening turned into night and the hours crept by, the cries upstairs grew more feeble. It was Milly Turner who finally let slip what the problem was.
‘It’s coming out the wrong way round,’ she explained. ‘Usually they come head first. It’s easier that way, you see.’
Ellen stared at her, trying to take this in. ‘You mean – it’s stuck?’ she asked.
‘Well . . .’ Milly looked uncomfortable. ‘Not exactly. But it’s more difficult. And your mum’s not as young as she was.’
Ellen looked up at the ceiling. Fear wound cold fingers round her. Her mother was not going to make it.
Then sometime after midnight there was a long despairing wail from the bedroom. Ellen shot to her feet, her heart pounding. Milly put a hand on her arm.
‘Wait,’ she said.
An urgency in her voice made Ellen obey. They both listened. Then the bedroom door opened and
Mrs O’Donaghue called down, weary but triumphant.
‘Will you come up here with plenty of soap and water? We done it. ’Tis a boy.’
Milly hurried to fill a bowl and get fresh cloths. Ellen ran straight upstairs, but Mrs O’Donaghue met her at the door. Her apron was splattered all down the front with blood.
‘You’re not coming in till she’s cleaned up. She’s in no fit state. Wait there.’ She slammed the door in Ellen’s face, only to reappear seconds later with a small bundle wrapped in an old torn sheet. ‘Take this downstairs in the warm. You know how to bath a baby, don’t you? I got to see to your ma.’ She thrust the bundle at Ellen and shouted down to Milly, ‘Bring up all the rags you can lay your hands on.’
Slowly, infinitely carefully, Ellen felt her way into the kitchen. There in the light she gazed at the tiny creased face of her new little brother. He was not beautiful. Smears and clots of blood stuck to his skull, his slitty eyes were puffed and closed and his mouth seemed misshapen. But he was a thing of great wonder.
‘Ah.’ Milly paused to peek at him on her way up. ‘Ain’t he lovely? Ever so quiet, though. Did Clodagh say he was all right?’
Ellen nodded, not taking her eyes off him. The enormity of the responsibility thrust upon her left her speechless. Not daring to put him down, she put more water to heat on the range and found the only receptacle not in use – the mixing bowl – and the last sliver of soap from the sink, together with a shawl and nightie her mother had made ready. Then, sitting cross-legged on the rag rug in front of the range, she unwrapped the soiled bit of sheet. A whimper came from the little mouth. Ellen wept tears of relief. It was all right. He was truly alive. She lowered him gently into the water, marvelling at the tiny limbs, washed away the blood and unstuck his eyelids. The feeble mew came again, but never grew into a proper cry. Ellen dried and dressed him and sat with him cuddled close to the warmth of her body, stroking the down of fair hair. She could scarcely feel him breathing.
Trinidad Street Page 14
