The Londoners (39 page)

Beneath a criss-cross of shattered wooden beams Leon looked down through what had once been the first floor of the house and into a chaotic shambles of fallen masonry and wrenched-off doors. A
pair of trouser legs were visible, their owner obviously stretched out full length, belly down.

‘The kid’s pinned under the table,’ the Air Raid Warden said helpfully. ‘Her mother’s with her and that table is all that’s keeping an avalanche of bricks and
mortar from tumbling down on top of them, and on Roberts as well.’

Leon inhaled a lungful of dust-laden air. ‘
Can you hear me, Doctor Roberts?’
he shouted into the pit. ‘
My name is Leon Emmerson. I’m Kate Voigt’s
lodger. Her baby’s on the way and her pains are coming quick and heavy.’

The trousered legs moved slightly and then a muffled voice shouted back, ‘She’ll be all right for hours yet . . . the minute I’m out from under this little lot I’ll be
right with her!’

‘
She’s not all right!
‘ Leon shouted back, wondering how, with no previous experience of childbirth he could be so utterly sure, ‘
Have you the address of a
midwife I could call? Or another doctor?
’

The reply was so muffled, Leon could barely hear it. ‘It’s a first baby! You’re panicking unnecessarily! Now get the hell out of here! All this shouting could bring
whatever’s still standing down on top of us!’

‘He’s right,’ the Air Raid Warden said grimly. ‘Vibrations are funny things. Sometimes it only takes a whisper to bring hundreds of tons crashing down.’

Leon swore. From the minute he had seen the pulverized building he had known there wasn’t a hope in hell of his returning to Magnolia Square with Doctor Roberts in tow. Somehow he would
have to get Kate to hospital.

He made his way carefully past the human chain passing bricks from hand to hand. Unless more efficient help arrived it would be a long time before the entombed mother and child would be free and
even when they were free he doubted if Doctor Roberts would be in any condition to bring a child into the world. He would very likely be in need of medical treatment himself.

He slipped beneath the cordon that had been erected around the collapsed house and broke once again into a run. He had to get Kate to hospital. If Harriet Godfrey had been home it wouldn’t
have been the slightest problem. Harriet could have run the two of them to hospital in her ambulance. But Harriet wasn’t at home. He pounded up to the top of Point Hill Road. Who else in
Magnolia Square had transport? Albert Jennings had a hearse, but it was always full to the gunnels with either full crates of fruit and vegetables, or empty crates.

Beneath his running feet paving-stones gave way to grass. He would have to telephone for an ambulance and he didn’t know anyone in Magnolia Square who was on the telephone. The ARP post.
Relief surged through him. He would be able to summon an ambulance from the ARP post. First, though, he had to get back to the house. He needed to reassure Kate. He sprinted as fast as he was able
across the road edging the Heath. And he needed to reassure himself that Kate hadn’t fallen when getting in or out of the bath; that she hadn’t hurt herself or, in falling, hurt the
baby.

The second he was in the house he heard her groan. It wasn’t the groan of someone weary or in discomfort. It was the deep, deep groan of someone rapidly slipping to the
point where dignified containment of pain was impossible.

His stomach lurched. ‘Kate!’ he shouted as Hector stormed towards him. ‘I’m back.
Kate?
’

With an agitated Hector at his heels he tore up the stairs, his hands clammy with sweat on the bannister rail. His first thought was that she had fallen getting in or getting out of the bath.
Dear God in heaven, why had he allowed her to take a bath when there was no-one in the house to help her if she got into difficulties? He should have run down to the Lomaxes’ and seen if
Mavis was in. Christ! He should have dragged someone in off the street if necessary!

‘Leon!’ Her voice was a gasp and it was coming from the bedroom, not the bathroom.

Without slowing momentum he grasped hold of the knob on her bedroom door and pushed it open, hurtling into the room, dreading what he might see.

She was on the bed, lying flat, her hands above her head gripping tight onto the brass bars of the bed-head.

‘Leon!’ The relief in her eyes was vast. It vanished the instant her eyes went past him to the empty doorway. ‘Where’s Doctor Roberts?’ she asked hoarsely.
‘The baby is coming, Leon!
Where’s Doctor Roberts?
’

He crossed the room towards her in swift strides, aware of several things simultaneously. She had obviously succeeded in having a bath. Her dark-blue maternity dress was nowhere to be seen.
Instead she was wearing a white cotton nightdress, high at the throat, the long sleeves demurely ruffled at the wrist. The wicker shopping-basket containing all that was necessary for the birth was
on the floor near the bed.

On her dressing-table was a pile of baby things. A tiny wrap-around vest; a winceyette nightie; a soft, hand-knitted matinee-coat; bootees; muslin inner napkins and terry napkins; a shawl. And
when she said the baby was coming, she wasn’t exaggerating. He could tell from the barely suppressed hysteria in her voice that she was
in extremis.
If her fear got the upper hand
now, it would be almost impossible for him to help her. He needed her co-operation. He needed her to help him bring her baby into the world.

He said in a voice of quiet calm, a calm he was very far from feeling, ‘Doctor Roberts is tending an emergency. An injured child. He’ll be with us just as soon as he can.’

‘But I can’t hold back the baby, Leon!’
Her voice, usually so soft and husky, was hoarse.
‘The pains have changed! I’m having to push!’

As if to prove the truth of her words her fingers tightened on the bars of the brass bed-head, her back arching off the mattress in a spasm of agony.

Any last doubts he might have had about the possibility of leaving her for the length of time it would take him to reach the ARP post and phone for an ambulance vanished. He was going to have to
deliver the baby himself and he was going to have to break the news to her the minute her violently strong contraction was over.

It lasted a full sixty seconds and it was the longest sixty seconds of his life. When it was over her face was bathed in sweat and her eyes were dazed. Comfortingly he took hold of her hand and
squeezed it tightly. ‘Listen to me, Kate,’ he said thickly. ‘Listen to me very carefully. There isn’t time to get you to a hospital or to get anyone here to see to you.
I’m going to have to look after you, do you understand?’

She nodded, her fingers tightening on his. ‘Yes . . . there’s another pushing pain coming, Leon! There’s hardly any time between them now . . .’

She stopped speaking abruptly, her nails digging into his hand till he thought she would draw blood, her eyes closing as she battled with the pain; battled for consciousness and
self-control.

The second it began to ebb he said urgently, ‘I’m going to go in the bathroom to scrub my hands. And I’m going to take Hector with me and leave him in there. Having a dog in a
room where a baby is being born can’t be hygienic.’

She nodded, releasing her hold of him, drawing deep, panting breaths. It was going to be all right. Leon would make sure everything was all right. As long as Leon was with her she could cope.
And soon her baby would be born. Soon Toby’s child would be kicking and crying and hungry in her arms.

She heard the gush of the hot water geyser and as another overriding pushing pain contorted her body, she drew her knees up, her feet splayed wide and planted firmly on the mattress. In this
position she could push easier. In this position she could hook her hands under her thighs and work with the pains convulsing her. It wasn’t ladylike and it wasn’t modest, but she was
beyond such considerations. She was beyond caring about anything but pushing her child from her womb.

She never even heard Leon re-enter the bedroom. One minute she was bearing down, panting with agony and effort, the next Leon was saying with tender reassurance, ‘You’re doing fine,
Kate. There was a glimpse of the baby’s head at the height of the last contraction. Another couple of pains and it will be over.’

There had been a moment when he had re-entered the room and seen her on the bed, her nightdress up around her knees, her hands hooked under her sweat-sheened thighs, her knees raised, when his
courage had nearly failed him. The moment had been occasioned only by his concern for her feelings; for his concern for her modesty. It vanished the second he realized she was beyond any such
considerations.

As she grasped that he was with her she said, a sob of need in her voice, ‘Leon? Oh thank God you’re here, Leon! The minute the baby’s head appears make sure it can breath.
Make sure its mouth and nose are clear . . .’

She broke off with a ragged cry. This time her contraction brought the baby’s head to the mouth of her vagina. It remained there just long enough for her to summon her last reserves of
strength and just long enough for Leon to spread his hands out ready to ease and support the baby’s head when the next contraction came.

Though only the crown of the baby’s head was visible Leon could see the one thing that mattered most. A pulse beating beneath a matt of dark-gold, sticky hair. The baby was alive. His lips
moved in silent prayer. Let it stay alive. Let there be nothing wrong with it. Please God let it cry the minute it was born.

Kate gave a cry that was only a fraction from being a scream and then, so suddenly that it took his breath away, the dark-gold head burst from her body, face down and mewling.

He could hear Kate gasping over and over again,
‘Oh God! Oh God! Oh dear God!’
and then Toby Harvey’s child slithered, streaked with mucus and blood, into his large,
capable, welcoming hands.

It was a boy. Never, ever, had he felt such turbulent emotion; never, ever, had he felt such a deep need to protect and to cherish. ‘It’s a boy, Kate,’ he said unsteadily,
barely trusting himself to speak. ‘It’s a boy and he’s perfect!’

Tears of exhaustion and happiness streamed down Kate’s cheeks. ‘Let me see!’ she begged, her eyes radiant. ‘Oh, please let me see! Shouldn’t he be crying louder!
Are you sure he’s all right? Has he got all his fingers? All his toes? Oh, isn’t he
beautiful
, Leon! Isn’t he
beautiful?
’

Very gently, with all the love in the world, Leon lifted the slippery little body and laid it on Kate’s belly. ‘He’s magnificent,’ he said, knowing the moment was one he
would never forget, not even if he lived to be a hundred. ‘Absolutely magnificent.’

She reached a hand down to touch the baby’s wrinkled, red skin. ‘When can I hold him?’ she asked longingly. ‘When will you be able to cut the cord?’

‘When the after-birth comes away,’ he said, trying to remember all he had ever heard about umbilical cords. It was precious little.

‘You’ll have to tell me how to do it,’ he said, already deciding that if she didn’t know he would leave the cord well alone until Doctor Roberts finally arrived.

‘It’s easy,’ she said with quiet confidence, her attention on the baby, stroking his sticky hair with feather-light strokes. ‘You need scissors and string and antiseptic
and one of the little pads I’ve made. I’ve sterilized the scissors and they’re in a pan of cooled boiled water in the bathroom.’

The baby stopped mewling and began to cry, his arms and legs flailing angrily.

‘He’s hungry,’ Leon said with a grin. ‘Let me put a towel over him so he doesn’t get a chill.’

As he did so she drew in a sharp breath and then said, ‘I think the after-birth is on its way. Can you spread some newspaper beneath me, Leon?’

He nodded and as he set about his task she said, awed by everything he had done for her and the manner in which he had done it, ‘I don’t know how to begin to thank you, Leon. Even
Doctor Roberts couldn’t have been as calm and reassuring.’

His grin deepened. ‘That remark shows just how much attention you were paying to everything! I felt about as calm as an earthquake!’

She began to giggle and he said in mock rebuke, terrified of allowing her to see how deeply moved he was; how very much he cared, ‘Don’t giggle. You’ll rock your son. And
speaking of your son, have you decided yet what you’re going to call him?’

‘Matthew Toby Leon Carl. Matthew, because it’s a name I’ve always liked. Toby after his father. Leon after yourself. And Carl because Carl is my father’s name.’

His throat tightened. ‘That’s quite a handful for such a little person,’ he said, not allowing his eyes to meet hers for fear of the emotions he might reveal.

‘He’ll grow into them.’ Her husky voice was laden with love and then she sucked in her breath sharply again. ‘It’s the afterbirth,’ she said as alarm flared
in his eyes. ‘It’s coming!’

‘Then push,’ he said, anxiety seizing hold of him. Dear God, it wasn’t over yet. She might begin to haemorrhage and then what would he do?

She didn’t haemorrhage. She lay back against the pillows he had eased beneath her head and shoulders, feasting her eyes on the warmly covered mound that was her son, touching the top of
his head ever so gently with her fingertips as Leon speedily and efficiently dealt with the after-birth and then tied off the cord and cut it.

‘It’s a pity the Navy doesn’t have a call for midwives,’ she said, watching him with tender amusement. ‘You’d make a first-class midwife.’

He dropped the scissors and string into the wicker shopping basket and grinned back at her. ‘Maybe I’ll take it up if I ever return to civvy street. Your son is badly in need of a
bath. Do you have a bowl handy?’

‘In the bathroom.’

‘I’ll bring it in here and bath him in here,’ he said, knowing how loath she would be to have Matthew taken from her sight even for a few minutes and more nervous than he cared
to admit as to how to go about bathing a tiny, slippery, crying baby. He needed her to be able to tell him what to do. His heart seemed to lurch within his chest. He needed her, period. He needed
her to bring warmth and laughter into his life. He needed her in order to feel whole and happy. He needed her because he loved her.