Lizzie of Langley Street

by Carol Rivers

  Lizzie went to the passage door and closed it. She didn’t want Flo to hear all the commotion.

  ‘Where’s me little sister?’ demanded Babs as though reading her mind.

  ‘Asleep, of course.’ Lizzie was panic stricken. She didn’t want Flo to see Babs or Vinnie in this state. Why had Frank brought them here? Babs shouldn’t be drinking like that with a child in her belly.

  ‘You act like you’re her mother,’ Babs sneered. Her old coat and thin dress were stained; she looked as though she hadn’t washed in months.

  ‘This isn’t the time—’ Lizzie began, but Vinnie butted in, his sly face in a snarl.

  ‘Bleedin’ cheek, telling us what to do. Frank, get yer old girl into order,’ he yelled, falling into the armchair by the fire.

  Frank staggered towards Lizzie. She tried to back away; the fumes on his breath make her feel sick. He looked dreadful. Unshaven and dirty, like Babs. She felt she was looking at a stranger.

  ‘What you going to do, then?’ he demanded, grasping a beer bottle that Babs thrust into his hand. He drank noisily from it, dragging his sleeve across his mouth.

  Babs cackled loudly. ‘’Ere, lover boy, your missus ain’t half got an opinion of herself. Always did have, the stuck up little cow. Ma never had chance to notice us. It was always Lizzie this, Lizzie that. A right little goody two shoes she was.’

  Frank swayed, his bloodshot eyes trying to focus.

  ‘She says she ain’t gonna let me see Flo, and I’m ’er sister,’ Babs continued in a cajoling tone. ‘Who does she think she is?’

  Frank grabbed Lizzie’s wrist and dragged her towards him. ‘Want to come to bed, eh?’ he muttered, his foul breath in her face. ‘No, course you don’t. Oh, no, all these years and you’ve been pleased to see the back of me. Well, maybe I should make you do your wifely duty tonight. Now what do you say to that?’ When she didn’t reply, he yelled, ‘Did you hear that, Vin? Not a word. Not a bloody word!’

  ‘Always told you she was a cool one,’ Vinnie muttered.

  Frank let the bottle fall to the floor as he pulled her against him. She moved her head but he grabbed hold of her chin, jerking it round. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Lizzie lifted her eyes. She gazed calmly into her husband’s face. There was nothing Frank could do to her that he hadn’t done before. She wasn’t going to let him see she was afraid now.

  Frank gurgled in his throat. ‘God above, what a bloody fool I was in wedding you.’

  ‘Send them away,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’

  ‘Watch her, Frankie,’ Babs hissed, coming close. ‘Tomorrow you’ll wake up and she’ll have you eating out of her hand.’

  ‘Yeah, and ain’t that the truth!’ Vinnie jeered. ‘Don’t let her fool you, Frankie boy. Reckon she’s still sweet on yer brother.’

  Frank’s eyes blazed. ‘Don’t listen to them, Frank,’ Lizzie begged. ‘Send them away. It ain’t none of their business.’

  ‘That’s what you’d like, admit it!’ Frank demanded. ‘Me out of this house and him back in it.’

  ‘No, Frank—’

  ‘You lying cow.’ He slapped her hard. His face swam in front of her. She almost fainted. He threw her against the wall with a bone-jarring thud. All the air was knocked out of her as she struggled to stand up.

  ‘I know what you need,’ Babs grinned, walking towards Frank, swaying her belly. She reached up and kissed him on the lips.

  Lizzie stared up at them. Frank put his arms around Babs and kissed her back.

  Lizzie felt the tears rush into her eyes. Although her body ached it was nothing to the pain in her heart. Now she knew she was alive. Now she felt all the emotions. Hate, loathing, disgust, betrayal. Her husband and her sister. And the baby? Was it Frank’s?

  Lizzie forced herself to look, watching Frank’s hands travel over Babs’ swollen breasts, over the huge mound of her stomach, his fingers pulling at her skirt.

  Lizzie forced herself to watch. She would remember this night all her life.

  Suddenly Babs stiffened, her fingers grasping Frank’s shoulders. Her broken nails dug into the cloth of his suit. He stared at her, his mouth open. For a minute Babs was silent, her eyes blank, her body still. Lizzie watched breathlessly as slowly she began to tremble. A long, piercing cry came from her mouth and filled the room. It seemed to echo round and round until Lizzie thought it wouldn’t ever stop.

  When it did, Babs was on her knees. Frank was staring down, his jaw sagging open as the stain spread over the rug.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘Christ! What’s ’appening?’ Frank yelled, staring down at Babs. The pool on the floor spread out beneath her.

  Vinnie sprang up from the chair. He stared down at his sister as she rocked on her knees. ‘She ain’t having it, is she?’

  Lizzie rushed to Babs. She couldn’t make Babs hear her, she was screaming too much. Just then the passage door opened. Flo stood in her nightgown, her eyes full of sleep. Her hair was tied up in paper curlers. She saw Babs on the floor. ‘Babs!’ she screamed, and ran to Lizzie. ‘What’s happening? What’s – she ain’t—’

  Lizzie nodded. ‘Her water’s broken.’

  Flo gasped. ‘A baby? I didn’t even know she was having one.’

  ‘We need the doctor. There’s blood in the water.’

  ‘She ain’t supposed to have it now.’ Vinnie’s black eyes narrowed as he came to stand over Babs. ‘She said she wasn’t due till January.’

  ‘Well, it’s started.’ Lizzie felt Babs’ nails dig into her arm. Another contraction came and Babs screamed louder, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Run for Dr Tap,’ Lizzie shouted at the two men, but they stood still, fear written over their faces.

  Frank staggered to the sideboard. He poured a whisky and gulped it down. He turned to Vinnie. ‘She’s your sister. You go.’

  Vinnie dragged on his coat. ‘I ain’t getting involved.’

  ‘Help us!’ Lizzie pleaded with him as Babs clung to her. ‘Go for the doctor, please!’

  Vinnie’s face was white. ‘Ain’t there some old girl that comes out who’ll know what to do?’

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘Not when someone’s bleeding like this. Look at her. Vinnie, she’s your sister. She needs the doctor.’

  He gave a low curse but muttered his assent. Then he looked slowly at Frank. ‘You bugger!’ he growled before turning and leaving.

  ‘Hurry, please hurry!’ Lizzie yelled after him. She was terrified for Babs, who looked almost unconscious. Her eyes had rolled back in their sockets. Lizzie knew it was only Dr Tapper who could save her. Was the baby still alive? Why had it come so early?

  She looked up at Frank. He poured more whisky and drank it. ‘Help me get her to the bedroom,’ she begged, wondering how a grown man could act in such a way. ‘If you don’t help me, she’ll have the baby here.’

  He stumbled over, clumsily dragging up Babs’ arm and pulling it round his shoulder. Lizzie took her other arm. Together they carried her down the passage.

  In the bedroom, Flo stammered, ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Lay an old cloth over my bed. Then boil some water. And towels – plenty of clean ones.’ Lizzie knew the doctor would want them.

  Flo ran out to the linen cupboard. She was soon back with an old sheet, which she spread over the bed.

  Frank dropped Babs on to the bed, almost falling down beside her. Lizzie managed to lift up Babs’ cold, bloodstained legs and push them over the sheet. ‘Don’t forget the water and towels,’ she told Flo, giving her a little shove. She knew Flo was terrified, her eyes wide as she stared at Babs moaning on the bed. ‘The doctor will be here soon.’

  Flo went, but Frank gazed down at Babs as though stunned. Her face was drained of blood under the tear-stained make-up.

  Lizzie stared at her husband, her heart pounding. What was he thinking? Was he the baby’s father? Slowly he turned and staggered from the room. Lizzie knew that the questions she had just asked herself would not b
e answered tonight. Frank was a liar. He was also a cheat and a coward. He had no interest in anyone under this roof except himself. He cared nothing for Babs in her distress. For a moment, a deep hatred welled up in her. It filled every inch of her body until she couldn’t breathe. Then Babs cried out, twisting on the bed, writhing in agony.

  Pity and sadness overwhelmed Lizzie. What a dreadful price to pay for an illegitimate child. Lizzie knew there was worse to come. Suddenly the angry emotions drained away, leaving her strangely calm. She knew she had to remain so for Babs and the child’s sake. Taking a breath, she began to remove Babs’ pitifully shabby dress. As she whispered words of comfort to her sister, she was praying that Dr Tap would arrive before it was too late.

  Dr Tapper prepared for a long night. It went that way with some women – he had delivered enough babies in his time to know the signs. The baby was in distress, and with the way the mother was it would be touch and go. How had she come to be in this state? He had known the Allens all his life, delivered all of the children. Kate Allen would be turning in her grave if she could see her daughter now.

  Dr Tapper sighed deeply. Being roused from his bed had done nothing for his temper. The girl’s brother had told him to come here, then disappeared. What had happened to the family, he wondered, in the years since Kate had died?

  He gazed down on the semi-conscious girl, unwilling to cut her. He was of the old school. He wasn’t for butchering, as some of his kind were. He’d not lost many, not when he recalled the hundreds he’d delivered, all sizes, shapes and colours. Some were alive and kicking, a few blue and cold as steel.

  He moved the stethoscope slowly over her abdomen. The baby was in distress. He was against the old ways, the backstreet butchers. And there were plenty of those old crones, all of them with their crafty methods. He’d seen enough of their work. The mothers got infected and many never recovered.

  He had spent his life amongst these women. It was the poverty that sickened him. And it wouldn’t change, not in his lifetime, anyway. The poor little buggers grew up to a living death anyway, sick, wretched and starving. And in the end they went after a few years’ miserable existence. Would the same happen to this infant if it survived?

  The doctor adjusted his stethoscope, his brow furrowed.

  ‘Can you hear the baby?’ Lizzie asked him.

  ‘Yes. And here’s another contraction coming.’ The doctor cursed softly. The girl’s breathing grew laboured, her eyes moving quickly under their lids.

  ‘It’s a breach,’ the doctor said. ‘I’ll have to turn it. Hold her still.’ He bent to the girl’s ear. ‘Don’t push, wait until I say,’ he instructed loudly as the sweat dripped off him. The chances were she couldn’t hear him. He spoke automatically, forcefully.

  Should he use the knife he wondered? It would be too late for both of them if he didn’t. Surely it was better to save one? But he was a stickler for hope. He’d pumped up their little chests with his own mouth, blown into them until he was as blue in the face as the infant. Even now after all these years he didn’t want to admit defeat. He took another breath, parted her legs once more and examined the birth canal.

  ‘More hot water and towels,’ he shouted.

  What was he going to do? He must be softening in his old age.

  ‘Is Babs gonna be all right?’ he heard the younger girl ask. She had been waiting outside.

  ‘Doctor’s doing his best. Come and help me.’

  Dr Tapper shook his head as he heard the door close. He looked down at his young patient, reflecting on the saying that the good and innocent die young. Well, maybe this girl would survive. Whether her child would be as fortunate, he had no way of knowing.

  At ten minutes to three in the morning, on Sunday 12 December 1926, Babs’ baby girl was born. Her breath was held so tightly from her turbulent passage into this world that she looked quite dead, even to the determined old doctor. But he fought for the tiny scrap, slapping the wrinkled blue skin and scooping away with his fingers the mucus that clogged her minute throat.

  Lizzie stood with Flo, watching in terror, as the baby refused to respond. Her eyes were squeezed tight, her starfish fingers bunched into blue metal fists. As she hung upside down in the doctor’s hands, he gave a cry that had both Lizzie and Flo jumping in fright. But the words he uttered caused a small miracle. They would live in Lizzie’s memory for the rest of her life.

  ‘Live for your grandmother, child, live for Kate Allen!’ the old man raved, sweat pouring from his face, his bloody hands and arms shaking as he held the infant aloft.

  The scream was instantaneous. A yell of defiance in the face of death. A wail that penetrated Lizzie’s trembling body and made Flo gasp aloud. It continued, as Babs’ cries had rung out continuously four hours earlier, rebounding from the walls.

  Dr Tapper laid the baby beside her mother. He took a damp cloth and cleaned her limbs. Lizzie gave him a clean white towel and he wrapped her in it.

  Babs’ white face was impassive. She stared at the child and the old man without recognition.

  ‘She needs to suckle,’ he said quietly.

  Lizzie watched as he turned down the sheet and laid the child at Babs’ breast.

  The wailing stopped. Greedy sucks replaced it.

  ‘Hold her,’ the doctor said, more firmly.

  But Babs slowly turned her head. She lay without movement, allowing the doctor to push the child into place with a pillow. They looked on as the baby fed, with no loving arms about it.

  The doctor washed his hands in the bowl. He pulled down his shirtsleeves, then replaced his waistcoat. When he looked at Lizzie, his face was that of a very old man. Older than she had ever seen him before.

  ‘Make certain the baby is fed,’ he told Lizzie. ‘One of you must always be present.’

  ‘Why won’t she feed her?’ Flo asked, her young face seeming to Lizzie to have also grown older.

  ‘Who knows.’ Dr Tapper looked long and hard at them. ‘The child’s survival will depend on you, until the mother responds.’

  ‘What about Babs?’ Lizzie asked. ‘Will she be all right?’

  ‘If the bleeding stops, yes, she will recover.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t?’

  ‘Just pray it will.’ He pulled on his black coat and picked up his bag. His movements were slow and weary. Lizzie was reminded of Bill and the sack of potatoes.

  ‘Will you come again?’ Lizzie asked as they all moved to the door.

  He nodded. ‘Later today. Yes. Remember, be vigilant with the child.’

  As Lizzie went to accompany him from the room, she glanced at Flo. ‘Wait here. I won’t be long.’

  Flo looked nervous. Lizzie squeezed her hand. ‘I won’t be long.’

  In the front room, Frank was lying on his back on the couch, snoring loudly. The doctor looked down at him as he passed, hesitating briefly. At the door, he paused. Stretching out his hand, he laid it on Lizzie’s shoulder. ‘It will be up to you to guard the child’s safety,’ he told her quietly.

  ‘I don’t know about babies,’ she said in confusion.

  ‘Then here is your chance to learn.’ He gripped her shoulder tightly. ‘It sometimes happens that a woman rejects her baby. For a while at least. Be patient – and circumspect. This baby girl is your mother’s first grandchild. She would have looked after her as if she was her own.’

  For a few moments they looked at one another. Lizzie felt the weight of his words, understood their meaning. Until Babs had recovered, she must care for the child, see to its needs. Kate would have wanted it. She would have undertaken the duty with love and patience. Lizzie knew what was expected of her.

  When the doctor left, she returned to the bedroom, ignoring the figure prone on the couch. Flo was bending over the bed, guiding the baby’s hands to her mother’s breast. Babs’ face was turned away, her eyes closed as though she was sleeping.

  Lizzie stood quietly beside Flo. The baby’s small mouth sucked at the nipple. It was a miracle th
ey had both survived. A peaceful air spread over the room. The agonizing delivery and the events preceding it seemed distant now. The new life that had resulted from such pain bathed them in its miraculous glow.

  ‘Go and sleep now,’ Lizzie whispered.

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Flo said quickly, her fingers linked with the baby’s. ‘I’ll watch too.’

  ‘We’ll take it in turns,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘But one of us must rest.’

  Reluctantly, Flo wriggled her finger free. The baby’s eyes flickered open. Lizzie and Flo breathed in sharply.

  They were a deep midnight blue.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lizzie placed the sprig of holly on the shelf beside Lil’s sponge cakes and laughed as Ethel made a face behind Lil’s back.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Lil as she turned quickly to frown at her daughter. ‘I’m in demand, ain’t I? Why shouldn’t I blow me own trumpet?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be like you not to, Mum,’ Ethel laughed.

  It was two days before Christmas. Lizzie, Ethel, Lil and Bill were all in festive mood. Lil had just brought some freshly made cakes, as Lizzie had sold out.

  ‘How many cakes is that this week?’ Lil demanded of Lizzie. ‘Tell her.’

  ‘Twelve,’ admitted Lizzie with a rueful smile. ‘You must be putting something in them, Lil.’

  ‘They melt on yer tongue,’ Bill said as he came into the shop from serving outside. ‘Don’t need me choppers in to eat ’em. See?’

  The three women screeched as Bill spat out his teeth, stuffed them in his pocket and pushed a slice of sponge cake into his mouth, gulping loudly.

  ‘You’ll get indigestion,’ Lil cackled loudly, pulling up the collar of her coat.

  ‘Nah,’ Bill disagreed smugly. ‘Not on your food, Lil. Even old Benji likes your cookin’. And he’s right partic’lar, he is.’

  Lil’s eyes opened wide. ‘You ain’t been giving me cake to the ’orse!’ she cried in alarm. There was so much laughter that the customer outside came in the shop and joined in the merriment. It was whilst everyone was laughing and joking that a soft wail came from the storeroom.