Mothers and Daughters (26 page)

‘Connie Winstanley,’ she replied, trying to be brave and friendly when she was completely terrified. The hall was gracious, with a mosaic-tiled floor, a winding oak stairway with a stained-glass window on the
landing, shot through with sunlight. There was an unmistakable smell of Jeyes fluid and burned toast.

The day room was full of battered armchairs and a minute television. Under the stairs sat a line of very old bucket prams. There was a print of Jesus holding the lamp, the Holman Hunt portrait, placed halfway up the stairs, and Connie could hear the noise of a baby wailing somewhere in competition with a radio.

Suddenly she felt desperate, so alone and full of shame, bewildered by the incongruity of such elegant rooms and such battered furnishings, as if the house had been emptied of anything that would give it colour and warmth and taste. Anything was good enough for girls who were no better than they should be, seemed to be the order of the day.

The windows were open and the draughts rattled the sashes. Doreen wobbled up the stairs to show Connie the dorms. ‘Antenatals to the left, and mothers and babies to the right,’ she smiled. ‘Bathroom down the corridor, but don’t lock the door in case you need help, and watch your purse …’

Connie’s heart sank. What sort of place was this?

‘It’s rest time on the bed for an hour now, feet up and no titivating.’ Doreen pointed to a girl lying with two slices of cucumber on her eyelids. ‘Matron doesn’t like make-up or nail polish on the bedspreads.’

‘What’s it like here?’ Connie asked, sitting on the iron bed, feeling the mattress with dismay.

‘Well, it’s not Butlins,’ Doreen smiled, ‘but it’ll do.’

‘You look fit to burst. When’s it due?’

‘They think it’s twins, worse luck,’ she sighed. ‘Any time now, and you?’

How on earth was this child going to look after twins? ‘About ten days, I hope. I can’t fit into anything,’ Connie moaned. ‘I just hope there’s not another heatwave coming our way.’

Her corner of the five-bedded room consisted of a bed and a locker, a small wardrobe, a chair and a hook behind the door. There was a large marble fireplace blocked up and an elaborate plasterwork ceiling that had seen better days. The room could do with a lick of fresh paint. The floor was linoleum in a pattern full of dizzy stripes. The curtains were unlined and skimpy. The view out from the bedroom was over the front lawn. There were no flowerbeds, no terraces, nothing but a monkey puzzle tree and the high hedge that screened the inmates shame from the world outside.

The other girls were lying down, bumps in the air, eyeing Connie with interest. Doreen was taking her duty seriously and introduced her. ‘This is Sheila and June and Evelyn Sixsmith. This is Connie.’

Connie smiled at each one in turn.

‘Welcome to heartbreak hotel,’ said June, who looked about her own age.

It didn’t take long to unpack, with her back turned for privacy, pulling out a pile of books:
Brontës, Gaskell, George Eliot, ready for next term’s tuition if she ever got the chance to go to university. When she’d finished she could see everyone staring in amazement as if she was a creature from another planet.

‘You’ll never read all them here,’ laughed Evelyn, who was brown-skinned with a scar across her cheek. ‘They keep you far too busy for reading.’

‘I have to read. I’m going to be a student,’ Connie explained.

‘Poor you,’ said Doreen, patting her stomach. ‘I was glad when they chucked me out of school.’

In no time Miss Willow appeared and summoned Connie to meet Matron Holroyd, who looked just like a deflated Hattie Jacques. Together these two guardians, tall and short, looked like a clothes peg and prop. Connie surrendered her supplementary benefit book and her antenatal card, which listed all the personal details asked for except the name of the baby’s father.

‘Your parents’ occupations?’

‘Soldier and nurse, but they’re both dead,’ she said. There was a stubborn part that was determined to hold back bits of herself from them. It was as if it wasn’t her sitting in front of them like some naughty schoolgirl, but her own double: Konstandina Papadaki.

‘I gather you have not decided about the baby yet,’ said Miss Holroyd, looking at her notes from Dr Shearling. ‘So what are your plans?’

It was a reasonable request, but Connie was on guard.

‘I want to start a degree course, if possible,’ she replied.

‘And the baby, who will be looking after the baby?’ Matron continued.

‘I don’t know yet,’ Connie said, feeling weary of questions.

‘This is a Christian foundation supported by the council. It is our duty to guide you to a wise decision. We have to account for all expenditure and comply with statutory regulations that require us to give you six weeks to decide. We believe in giving every new infant the best possible chance in life. It is hard to burden any baby with the stigma of being illegitimate when there are hundreds of good people desperate to give it a proper family life. You owe it to the innocent party in all this to do what is best for it, not you. Babies need mothers and fathers if they are to grow up healthy and successful.’

Most girls she’d grown up with had had no real fathers but how could she argue with Matron? Besides, she was too tired now to comment. None of this was making any sense.

‘There are homes waiting for a child with your special credentials,’ Matron continued.

Connie was puzzled, looking up questioningly.

‘You are obviously a clever girl, and I presume the father is a student too.’

‘My mother was Greek and the father is a pop singer,’ Connie replied, hoping it would put her off.

‘No one will hold that against the child,’ Matron answered. ‘Is there a possibility of a reconciliation?’

Connie shook her head. ‘This is all my responsibility now.’

‘All the more reason to be a sensible girl and give Baby up for adoption,’ Matron said. ‘We can take it away at birth or you can keep Baby for two weeks and then see where we stand. If you sign the adoption papers there’s no point in spinning out the agony. It doesn’t do to get too attached.’

Connie was not having any of it. ‘Do I give birth here?’

‘Goodness, no! You go to the local maternity wing of the hospital, like everybody else, to be monitored and delivered. You can stay the statutory ten days on the ward, then back here to discuss things with welfare department.’ Then she leaned over to give Connie a sheet of rules to sign.

‘We expect good behaviour at all times, no alcohol on the premises and no men visitors. All other visits by permission, and no phone calls without permission. Church on Sunday. I see you’ve put yourself down as Greek Orthodox. We don’t cater for foreign, any other religion must be arranged in advance. There is cooking and light cleaning duties for antenatals. If you do bring Baby back here, then you must be prepared to look after your baby at all times. I hope
you brought a suitable layette and two of everything. A baby is not a doll. They make unreasonable demands. We find reality is a hard taskmaster. It sorts the sheep from the goats, the faint-hearted from the natural mother. You don’t look the type to me.’

Connie sat back, defeated by the brusque no-nonsense arguments. The home was a model of efficiency but where was the compassion? They must come and go by the due date, deposit and deliver their burden, and be dismissed to make way for others to follow.

She must either take on the child or walk away. This was the terrible choice facing her. There would be no time to brood over options with meals to prepare, cleaning, laundry, check-ups, prayers over meals and enforced rests.

For one brief minute Connie thought about packing her bags and catching the first train back to Grimbleton, and to hell with the lot of them. But she hadn’t the energy to budge.

A cluster of young mums with babies talked about their birthings and their stitches and their imminent departure dates. Each of the rest was waiting to join their club, knowing full well their turn for the agony would come. They sat sipping afternoon tea in little huddles. It was like some bizarre boarding school full of bloated schoolgirls. Doreen gave her the lowdown on those in their dorm.

‘Evelyn went with a black man from Jamaica.
She was in a school for delinquent girls but her mam might have her back. June’s a nurse, brainy like you. She’s going to keep her baby, if she can face her dad. Sheila’s engaged but her mam won’t let them marry until the baby is out of the way and adopted. No wedding, and no going back home if she keeps it. What can she do? She doesn’t want to fall out with her mum. So they don’t want anyone to know she’s in here.’

‘What about you?’ Connie said. Doreen was so young.

‘I got copped at the fairground. He works the dodgems for Pat Collins; here today and gone tomorrow. My brothers went after him but he vamoosed, didn’t he, leaving me up the duff.’

It was easy talking to these girls, different though they all were. They were all in the same sorry mess. ‘I’m hoping to keep my baby,’ Connie explained.

‘Better you than me,’ Doreen replied, eyeing her pile of books. ‘Doesn’t all that book learning put wrinkles on your face?’

Connie sat at the dinner table with June later that day. They were about the same age but plain-looking as June was, there was a silent strength and passion to her that reminded Connie of her heroine, Emily Brontë. Her parents were strict Plymouth Brethren. Hers was another sad tale of getting carried away by first love.

‘I thought he was the love of my life but he wasn’t
ready to settle down. He was a medic and suggested I had an abortion. He was going to take me back in the middle of the night into theatre. He wanted one of his mates to give me a D and C. How could I get rid of a life? Now he’s seeing someone else.’

Connie agreed it was a drastic option and she wouldn’t have had a clue how to go about it, not to mention that it was illegal. She’d just felt she had to see things through to the end like June, but then what?

What a sorry bunch of sisters they were. But as the days went on they drew strength from each other, packing and unpacking their maternity cases: sanitary towels, maternity size; nappy pins; muslins; thin nighties; vests and bootees; hats and bonnets; talc and cod liver oil; pram suits and towels. Only the best for Connie’s baby would do and she’d been extravagant just to prove a point, using every pound Neville sent.

But she realised how silly she’d been to bounce into a shop pretending she was married and buying the most expensive things just to make her feel better for a few minutes. Now she had nothing in her purse but change for phone calls.

On Saturday night Connie was deep into
Middlemarch
, while June was reading Dr Spock’s childcare manual, quoting them bits from time to time. Evelyn was trying to knit a rainbow-coloured bonnet. Sheila was writing daily letters to her fiancé,
begging him to run away to Gretna Green with their baby. Doreen had nothing prepared. Her mother called in from time to time, a worried little woman in a headscarf, holding a cigarette out in front of her as if to ward off the evil eye.

Doreen liked going to the newsagent’s for sweets and magazines, but her legs were swelling and she found it difficult to move. Sometimes June and Connie took the chance to escape into the sunshine. June was full of plans for her baby. Connie couldn’t think so far ahead as if part of her brain was frozen with fear.

There was a television allowed, but not on Sunday when they had to attend Calvary Church, morning and evening. It was torture, sitting on those hard pews with aching backs and heartburn, listening to some old man who loved the sound of his own voice. They sat upstairs in the old servants’ gallery like delinquents, ushered out before the last hymn so the Sunday School wouldn’t see their bulging shame. The weather was so warm they had few suitable clothes to wear but cotton print smocks over straining skirts.

Once a week they were escorted to the maternity wing of the teaching hospital for the usual pre-birth check-ups. They sat with the other mums-to-be, who stared at their ringless fingers with silent pity in their eyes.

‘Mrs Winstanley?’ Connie looked up, thinking there was someone else with the name.

‘Mrs Constance Winstanley!’ Why were they calling her Mrs?

‘It’s only Miss Winstanley,’ she whispered to the nurse.

‘Not in here it isn’t,’ she snapped, palpitating the bump. ‘Head not engaged. Otherwise full term and a good size.’

‘Can I go now?’ Connie asked, feeling naked on the couch.

‘Down the corridor for blood pressure and urine and scales,’ the nurse ordered, not bothering to look at her.

It was at this point, Evelyn, whose blood pressure was going through the roof and whose ankles were swollen, was admitted for an induction.

‘What’s an induction?’ asked Doreen, worriedly.

‘They put your feet in stirrups, snip your water bag and give you an enema and a pessary to get you going. Evelyn’s got signs of toxaemia and that can be dangerous,’ said June who was their fount of medical knowledge.

‘I wish I hadn’t asked,’ moaned Doreen.

Next morning they heard that Evelyn had had a boy, six pounds twelve ounces.

I hope by the time she comes back I’ll be well on the way myself, Connie thought.

Sheila went next in the middle of the night, a week early, followed by Doreen, who had an emergency Caesarean.

‘Three down, two to go,’ Connie smiled to June. They’d had time to get to know each other and often escaped through a back garden gate into a snicket and walked in the summer evening to get some fresh air. June was terrified of telling her parents. They were very strict and had hopes of her becoming a medical missionary in Borneo.

It was hard to explain to June why Connie refused to tell her friends what was happening to her. Perhaps she was too proud to admit she’d messed up and too proud to ask for help. She’d always been the good girl. She wanted them to think of her still as the clever Connie who’d flounced off to find fame and fortune with her boyfriend. None of those lies mattered now. She was going to face giving birth on her own in a strange place.

Days later, even June deserted her. She’d had the runs and, being too shy to warn anyone, had locked herself in the bathroom. Then there were screams and a panic, and Miss Willow had climbed up the stepladder to get through the open window while an ambulance was called. Baby Matthew Brownley was born in the ambulance in a layby on the A65.