Family of Women (8 page)

‘Course – she comes from poor stock, you can see by the look of her,’ Bessie said.

Violet wasn’t taken with Gladys, who she thought was a narrow-minded nag. All the same, she ealatiiv heighwas embarrassed by Mom talking about Gladys as if she was a farmyard animal.

Violet didn’t like being in the ‘condition’ she was in. She felt sick, and when that wore off and her belly began to swell she felt invaded, frightened and out of control. Panic-stricken, she remembered Marigold, lying there like a great bloated cow when she got big, and the terrible sounds she made giving birth. Sometimes she wept with fright just thinking about it.

‘I don’t want to do it!’ she cried to Harry one night, as they were lying in bed. ‘I’m only seventeen – I don’t want this yet. My life’ll be over!’

‘Don’t talk daft.’ Harry gave her a cuddle and stroked his hands over her buttocks. Her new, curving shape excited him. He started touching her and Violet sighed. She didn’t want him messing with her, she wanted him to understand and reassure her. She felt very alone. Apart from his sexual excitement, she saw that he didn’t really want the baby, even though he tried to pretend.

When she’d first told him was on a Sunday morning. She’d made tea and they were snuggled up in bed together, with the luxury of no work and the morning stretching ahead of them. Violet didn’t feel very well, but she’d been sick and felt better for it. She lay with her head on his chest, tickling him lightly with her fingers, just below his collarbones. Close up she could see the strong black hairs curling up from his pale skin.

When she told him she was being sick because there was a baby, Harry lay still without replying. After a moment he gave a deep sigh.

‘Don’t!’ she cried, tearfully. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’

There was a pause, then he turned to her, and she could tell he was making himself smile.

‘Course I am.
I don’t s’pose it makes any difference – we can still go to Australia.’

‘We’ll be a family,’ she said. But she felt a plunge of fear. Australia was just a name to her. All she knew of it was that it was hot and dusty, and there were kangaroos! And it was so far away. The thought was frightening. All she wanted now was safety and what was familiar.

‘I don’t know why you didn’t marry your mother!’

Violet shrieked at Harry’s back as he left the house once again.

There was no reply, but he slammed the door so hard that it sprang open again. Violet sighed sharply and banged it shut again.

I’m turning into a proper fishwife
, she thought. She didn’t like shouting like that. They seemed to be rowing so much of the time these days. And it was usually over the same thing.
But he’s never here!

‘You might as well bloody live with her still! Why can’t one of the others go?’

As soon as he knew about the baby, Harry seemed to shn

Even when he was at home, Harry never understood how she felt, that she needed comfort and reassurance. Violet turned to Jo Snell and her family. Her friendship with Jo had come to be one of the most important things in her life. She could pour her heart out to Jo, and often did.

‘I expect he’ll come round when the baby’s born,’ Jo told her. ‘And if he doesn’t, more fool him. You can always come and see us.’

It was marvellous to have a friend like that. But even Jo didn’t know how it felt to have a baby. The one person who seemed to understand, for the first time ever, was her mother. More and more often after work she found herself slipping along Summer Lane and into Bessie’s yard. Home. That’s how she thought of it still, and it felt reassuringly familiar, although she lived with Harry and that was supposed to be her new home.

Suddenly though, Bessie was treating her with a new respect. Almost, though not quite, as an equal. Violet existed for her in a way she never had before and when she went round there her mother was welcoming in her aggressive way. Yesterday when she’d gone there, feeling lonely, Bessie greeted her with, ‘Oh – so you’ve come running back again, have you? You’d better come in then. How’s the babby?’

To Violet’s relief, no one else was in.

‘Rosy out with her pals, is she?’

Bessie scowled, banging the kettle down on the fire. ‘When’s she ever in, little minx. She’s felt my hand a few times lately, I can tell you. There’s some factory Jack hanging round her already – at her age! I’ve told her she’ll come to a bad end. The lip she’s got on her! I said to her this morning, you’ll have mustard on your tongue if you carry on like that but it’s like talking to the wall . . .’

Violet was surprised how little authority Bessie had over Rosina. The rest of them had always kowtowed and tiptoed round her. Rosy had always been different – now she was even more so. She was just fourteen and had started work at a button factory and according to Bessie spent as little time at home as she possibly could. Violet felt sorry for her though, left at home with Clarence and Marigold.

Bessie brewed up the tea and set it on the table. As usual, the room was as clean as a pin, plates gleaming on the shelves, the rag rug shaken out and laid back by the range. Bessie was obsessed with cleaning.

‘Here – have one.’ On the table were boiled sweets in a little pale blue bowl. ‘Barley sugar – that’ll make you feel better.’

Violet obeyed.

‘You should be drinking raspberry leaf tea . . .’ Bessie sat down with a grunt in the big chair by the range, smoothing her capacious apron over her lap. ‘Helps with the pains . . .’ She peigrding QShe peigroured from the old brown teapot and spooned plenty of sugar into her cup.

Violet didn’t need to say a word. Bessie sat back, holding her cup up close to her chin, her dress riding up to show inches of coloured bloomers, shoes off to ease her corns. She reminisced about her own childbearing days.

‘Ooh now, you don’t know what’s coming to you, wench. I’ll never forget Charlie and Marigold – sick as a dog I was! Just be grateful it’s not twins. Jack’s face when she told him there was two of ’em! Treated me like a queen he did, your father.’ She gave a great sigh. ‘My Jack, God rest him. Now he was a man, he was. Father of twins! He was cock of the walk!’

Violet could see her mother had felt like one of the seven wonders of the world for producing twins. It was the great event of her life. Details followed over the willow-pattern teacups about swollen legs and having ‘trouble going’ or, as Bessie called it, ‘corkage’, and piles and other gruesome delights of childbearing, until Violet felt even more sick with dread.

‘Don’t tell me any more,’ she begged.

This made Bessie laugh, her huge body quivering. ‘You’ll soon find out for yourself, any road, Vi.’

‘I don’t know as I want to find out,’ Violet said miserably.

To her surprise, her mother leaned over and patted her leg. ‘Time of your life, bab – that’s what it is. Makes a woman of you.’

Violet was overcome by all this sudden attention from her mother. For the first time she wasn’t just the spare part, just one other girl stuck in the middle between the twins and Rosina, the pale, sickly-looking one whom no one ever noticed. Suddenly Bessie wanted her, and she was brought inside her mother’s powerful orbit with a warmth and sense of approval she had never felt before and barely knew Bessie was capable o
f. Bessie marched her off to the doctor for a check-up, and when they went round for the big Sunday dinner which was becoming tradition, Bessie kept making mention of ‘Vi’s condition’ and ‘Vi and Harry’s babby’. She knew Bessie didn’t think much of Harry, but he’d given her a child and that was what mattered. Gladys was having no luck, and Marigold didn’t count. At last Violet felt she counted in a way that so far none of the others did.

The baby was due in February. By the end of the summer Violet stopped feeling sick and began to enjoy being at work again and the fuss she received from the other women, which made her feel important. For the first time she felt like Someone. Her belly swelled and showed up quite early against her slim figure. She started to feel the baby move inside her and it aroused her curiosity as well as anxiety. Who was that in there?

But come January, it all went wrong. Violet woke in the middle of the night and knew something had happened. She had a feeling in her, not pain at first, just a sensation as if something had given way in her. Then she felt a trickle between her legs.

I’ve wet myself! she thought, horrifiedue>

‘Harry!’ she whimpered. ‘Wake up – I’m all wet. There’s something happening!’

Harry groaned. It took her some time to rouse him and get him to light the candle.

‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ he asked crossly. ‘Ugh – it’s all wet!’ he had leaned his elbow in the big, pinkish stain which had spread across the bed.

‘I don’t know what’s going on. The babby shouldn’t be coming yet, should it?’ Scared, Violet started to cry. She realized that despite all Bessie’s talk she had given her no real understanding of anything that would happen to her.

Harry lit the candle and, seeing there was something really wrong, came and put his arms tenderly round her. She was shivering with cold and fright.

‘It’s all right. Come on – get this wet thing off.’

‘I don’t know what’s going on!’ she wailed. ‘I’ve just wet myself.’ She cried out then, as a burning pain tore across her swollen belly. ‘Oh, Harry, what’s happening? I don’t know what to do.’

She would always remember her husband tenderly for these next moments. He held her as the pain gripped her, then as it died away he said, ‘Come on – lift up your arms.’ He tugged the half-sodden shift over her head and, finding a dry part of it, wiped her back and legs.

‘What else can you put on?’

In a drawer he found a camisole vest and a blouse and dressed her like a child.

‘I’m still losing,’ Violet gasped miserably, as more warm liquid seeped out down her legs. Another pain came then, sudden and violent as a crack of thunder.

‘Oh God!’ She clung to him groaning until it passed. ‘The babby must be coming. What do we do?’

‘I’d better go and get the midwife.’ She could hear him trying not to panic and it made her feel stronger. ‘Will you be all right?’

‘Course I will. But be quick!’

Harry tore down the street like a madman and soon she heard him coming back and bounding noisily up the stairs.

‘You all right?’ he panted.

She was kneeling, recovering from a fresh bout of pain and nodded at him, trying to smile.

‘Mrs Barker’s coming. She said to get the kettle on . . . Back in a tick.’ And he fled downstairs again, tripping on the top step and having to right himself as he went down, stumbling and swearing. Violet managed a smile at this befoighter g a befoightre the pain took her in its grip again.

‘Am I having the babby?’ she asked when Mrs Barker, a kind, middle-aged woman, appeared upstairs.

‘Looks like it, dear.’ She patted Violet’s hand. ‘Now don’t you worry. I’ve seen hundreds of babbies into the world. This one’s coming a bit early, but you’ll be right as rain.’

The night passed in a swirl of agony. Violet lay on the mattress, which Mrs Barker covered with newspaper and then with an old sheet over the top. Violet kept hearing the paper crackling as she moved, and in between the roaring pain she was aware of Harry’s voice as he ran for the things Mrs Barker requested.

As dawn broke she was becoming completely exhausted and the pain reached the point where it was unbearable, and soon the baby was born, cracking her open, then slithering into Mrs Barker’s hands. There was a silence, then a tiny snuffling noise. Despite her exhaustion Violet was alert with a mother’s need to hear a cry, to know it was all right.

‘What’s the matter?’ She wanted someone to comfort her, to say things were all right.

Mrs Barker looked up, immediately trying to hide her worry. ‘You’ve had a boy. He’s beautiful, but he’s a tiny little thing. We’ll have to do our best to keep him warm. Let’s see if he’ll take any milk. You just sit up a bit, dear.’

She brought the tiny scrap of a child to Violet, wrapped up but not yet washed. Violet saw a minute face, the skin yellow, eyes tightly closed and rimed with white, the whole tiny creature pulsating like a little bird. She was frightened of him, he was so small, yet her whole being flooded with protective feelings. A little boy –
my
little boy!

‘Hello, babby.’ She heard the soft tenderness in her own voice.

‘See if he’ll suckle,’ Mrs Barker ordered.

Without any ado she pulled up Violet’s vest and began to massage her nipple.

‘Put his mouth to you. They know what to do.’

But the little one didn’t know what to do. His mouth didn’t move when Violet pressed it to her breast and his eyes didn’t open.

‘You can do it,’ she whispered.

But there was no response.

‘Hand him to me,’ Mrs Barker ordered. I’ll wrap him up well and we’ll get the fire going downstairs. It’s a bitter night. We’ll keep him warm till he’s ready and you can get yourself a bit of shut-eye.’

Violet reluctantly handed the baby over. In a minute Mrs Barker was back.

‘That husband of yours has built up a good fire – he’s ever so good with him, I’ll say that. Sitting holding him, he is.’

Violet smiled wanly. She was so exhausted, her pale hair plastered to her head. Mrs Barker clean.

But the next thing she knew, the room was filled with hard winter sunshine. Her body felt bruised and scoured out, a sodden rag between her legs and someone had just weighted the bed down, sitting beside her. It was Harry, and there were tears running down his cheeks.

‘What’s the matter?’ She jerked upright, heart pounding.

Harry started sobbing. ‘He’s gone. Passed on.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Her teeth started to chatter. ‘No!’ she cried, her eyes desperately searching his face for some hope. ‘No . . . No – he hasn’t – you’re lying to me!’

But Harry’s shoulders were heaving with sobs.

‘He was in my arms . . . He was all right . . .’ She could hear the shock and disbelief in his voice. ‘She said to keep him warm and we was by the fire. And then he gave a bit of a shudder, like . . . He wasn’t breathing any more . . .’ He broke down and cried then, hands over his face. ‘He’s gone, Vi . . .’