Gracie

by Marie Maxwell

  ‘You’re stupid and gullible, Sean – do you know that? Jennifer hates to see anyone happy. She’s always been like it; she’s jealous, she’s spiteful and if you think she’s doing this for any other reason then you should be living in the bloody lunatic asylum, not here …’

  ‘Maybe, but it wasn’t Jennifer who had a baby and didn’t tell her husband, was it now? You can’t blame her, Gracie did this to herself.’

  ‘It’s not too late, Sean. Can’t you two sit down and talk about it? Please?’

  ‘No. It’s too late, what’s done is done. She’s a liar. I can never trust Gracie again, not ever, so there’s no point.’

  Jeanette glared at him but said nothing else, simply ushered her heavily pregnant sister downstairs and out of the front door.

  ‘She should have told me …’ Sean shouted at the top of his voice as Jeanette slammed the front door.

  ‘This is all well and good but where are we going to go?’ Jeanette asked as they stood side by side on the pavement outside. ‘We could go to Mum and Dad’s and explain …’

  Gracie managed a laugh. ‘And you think Mum would chuck Jennifer out so that we could stay there? Never in a million years! She’ll say I deserve this, she might even be pleased I’ve got my comeuppance. No, we’ll go to Thamesview. Ruby would never see us out on the street.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about her. Okay, we’ll walk to the rank at the station and get a taxi. You can’t go on a bus like that, you look terrible.’

  Gracie could feel her whole body throbbing. Her legs were leaden and the baby inside her was kicking madly as if in protest at the disturbance. If Jeanette hadn’t been there it would have easy for her to just lay down on the pavement then and there and go to sleep.

  ‘I’m so stupid. Sean’s right about that, I really am one stupid fat cow. I should just go throw myself off the end of the pier and be done with it. I’ve lost everything …’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, you’ve got a baby to think about,’ Jeanette said as she linked an arm through her sister’s. ‘We’ll go and talk to Ruby and then we’ll plot the best way to slowly and painfully kill our sodding bitch of a sister.’

  As Gracie walked away from her home with just a few basic things packed into a small suitcase, the rent money in her purse and Jeanette’s arm in hers helping her along, so Jennifer, who had been standing in the shadows further along the road, went and knocked on the door.

  She made Sean tea, gave him sympathy, hugged him close and then took him to bed.

  Sadly, Sean Donnelly simply couldn’t resist her.

  He’d never known anyone as seductive or addictive as his sister-in-law. He was madly and blindly in love, even though he knew deep down that she was devious and nasty, and had most likely exaggerated the truth about Gracie’s past.

  But at that moment Sean wanted to believe it was all true. He wanted to think that his wife had betrayed him, and now she was gone and he could be with Jennifer with a clear conscience because it was all Gracie’s fault.

  But even as he bedded Jennifer once again he couldn’t get Gracie and his baby out of his mind and she knew it.

  ‘Let’s run away together …’ Jennifer said as they lay side by side in Sean and Gracie’s marital bed.

  ‘I can’t do that – I have a job, there’s a baby …’

  ‘You can get another job, so can I, and the baby isn’t yours anyway, I already told you that. Why don’t you listen to me? I’m always right, you should listen!’

  There was a brittle edge to her voice that unsettled Sean. When he didn’t answer she continued.

  ‘I looked in the Evening News, there’s a hotel in Brighton that’s looking for staff. We could both work there. It’ll be fun and we won’t have to see Gracie or any of them ever again.’

  ‘I can’t do that … the baby …’

  ‘Oh yes you can, Sean. Now listen to me, we’re leaving tomorrow and going to Brighton.’

  As Jennifer spoke, she slipped slowly out of the bed and walked across the room. With a flourish she turned on the ceiling light then twirled gracefully back towards him as if she was a revue dancer. As she reached the bed she pulled the covers back, leaned over him and carefully put her hands on his shoulders. She stared into his eyes for a few moments, before very slowly lifting one leg in the air and swinging it over his naked body. She was completely naked and framed under the beam of light from the ceiling.

  ‘Is that okay? We’ll leave tomorrow?’ she asked as she sat upright on him, put her hands behind her neck and slowly gyrated her hips down onto him.

  ‘Yes …’ he groaned. ‘Tomorrow …’

  ‘Good!’

  EIGHTEEN

  ‘I don’t care what you say, I’m going to have to telephone the midwife, Gracie. This isn’t right, you’re white as a sheet and shivering …’

  ‘I’ll be alright in a minute, it’s just cramp.’

  ‘It’s not just cramp, though – I can see that by looking at you, and you’re burning up,’ Ruby said as she leaned over the sofa and touched her friend’s forehead. ‘Oh I’m so bloody, bloody angry! This is all Sean’s fault. Johnnie is fit to kill him – he was all for going round there straight away and dealing with him. He still wants to, it’s unbelievable …’

  ‘That’s silly, it wasn’t all Sean’s fault. It was my sister; she stirred it until he didn’t know whether he was coming or going. And it’s my fault.’

  ‘How is it yours? He turfed you out, he wouldn’t listen …’

  ‘He was made to look stupid and he reacted. I should have told him; you said I should, Mum and Dad said I should, but I didn’t say a word and now he thinks I lied about everything.’ Gracie grabbed hard at her stomach and gasped. ‘Oh God this is agony! I feel like I’m going to explode …’

  ‘I’ll have to ring the midwife.’

  Gracie and Ruby were in the flat at the top of the Thamesview. Gracie was curled up on the sofa and Ruby started pacing back and forth, a worried frown on her face and her arms folded tightly across her chest.

  ‘Okay okay, you go down and ring the midwife. Hopefully it’ll stop you wearing a hole in the lino …’ Gracie tried to smile but it was hard; she was in so much pain she could barely think, let alone smile.

  She knew that Ruby was right, that something was definitely amiss, but she didn’t want it confirmed. She could feel her baby moving and kicking, and as long as that was still happening she didn’t want to push her luck. Feeling the baby was the one thing that had comforted her in her misery.

  Gracie was aware she was in labour but she was hoping against hope that it would stop because it was about a month too soon and the thought of possibly losing another baby, albeit under different circumstances, was just too unbearable.

  When she and Jeanette had turned up at the hotel three weeks previously after the big row with Sean, Ruby hadn’t asked for explanations or reasons, but had taken one look at Gracie and bundled them both inside. Leaving Johnnie to deal with everything downstairs, Ruby had quickly made up the bed in Gracie’s old room, gathered up enough bedding from the linen cupboard for Jeanette to take the sofa and then gone into full mother-hen mode, while at the same time cussing Sean Donnelly to kingdom come.

  Gracie had been silently grateful for her friend’s care and support; she had curled up in a ball in her bed with the curtains tightly closed for two days and had then wandered round the flat in a daze for several more days, until Ruby had eventually taken her to task.

  ‘Gracie, I love you and I’ll happily look after you, you know that, but only you can look after your baby and you’re doing it no good by not eating or sleeping, or getting any fresh air. Now get your coat, we’re going for a walk and then you’re going have some soup, whether you want to or not. Come on, think of the baby …’ Ruby smiled persuasively.

  ‘I don’t want to go out; I don’t want to see anyone.’

  ‘Too bad. Get your cardi and shoes … now! We’ll just be two women taking a stroll and we’ll walk in
the other direction, towards Shoebury, so there’s no chance of seeing any of your old chums from the Palace. We’ve got bags of time. Johnnie is in charge and doing very nicely.’

  After some grumbling, Gracie had given in, and the two of them had walked and talked as they used to but neither of them mentioned Sean specifically.

  Ruby did most of the talking, chatting away about all the minutiae surrounding the running of the hotel, the buying of the property next door and giving updates on the Wheatons and Maggie. Gracie knew she was trying hard to lift her spirits and distract her, and she did her best to respond but it was hard to smile when her life, with everything she had ever wanted, had fallen apart so dramatically. And it had all been her own fault.

  From being in the place she had always wanted to be, with a husband, a home and a baby on the way, Gracie was suddenly back where she started. A pregnant young woman on her own.

  But after the walk she’d picked herself up as best she could and tried to make herself useful in the hotel, to earn her board and keep her sanity.

  Breathing hard after running back up the stairs, Ruby went over to the sofa and checked Gracie again.

  ‘The midwife is out on a call so you need to go to hospital. We’ve both had babies and we both know this isn’t right. I’m taking you to hospital, like it or lump it …’

  ‘I don’t want to go to hospital, Rubes. I can’t face going there again, not after last time, and anyway it’s not due for ages, it’s too soon for it to be born. I just want to stay here and hang on until it passes …’ Gracie sobbed, the words tumbling out as she tried to ignore the griping pains that were building inside her.

  As she spoke, she wrapped her hands around her stomach protectively. The pain was intense and she felt as if she was going to be sick but tried to keep calm, hoping that if she could keep it under control that the pains would go away. But instead, they intensified.

  ‘No more arguments,’ Ruby said firmly a few minutes later. ‘I’m taking you to hospital now. The car’s out the back but I don’t want you traipsing through the kitchen and garden, so we’ll go down to the lobby and then I’ll get Johnnie to bring it round.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to hospital …’ Gracie cried. ‘I told you, it’s too soon.’

  ‘I know you don’t want to but you have to, you have to think about the baby, not yourself.’ Ruby’s voice was calm and soothing as she tried to reassure her. ‘I’ll be with you all the way. Up you get and I’ll help you down the stairs.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Would you sooner I called an ambulance to take you? Would that make you feel better?’

  ‘Nooo, no ambulance …’

  They slowly made their way down to the ground floor, and then Ruby and Johnnie put Gracie into the back seat and drove as fast as they could to the hospital.

  As the car whipped along the roads Gracie was back in 1946, the year she had given birth to her baby Joe.

  ‘Stop making such a fuss, you stupid child! This is pain of your own making …’ the nurse had told her as she was struggling with her labour. ‘You girls from St Angela’s are all the same when you come here, lots of fuss and nonsense and shouting …’

  Gracie had been in heavy labour for nearly twenty-four hours when she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Terrified by the stories she had heard of the way St Angela’s girls were treated at the hospital, she had pleaded with them not to send her but it had been in vain. The ambulance was called and Gracie had been bundled in alone and taken to the maternity hospital in a uniform nightdress and dressing gown, wearing black plimsolls. As she was admitted, she was more mortified by the way her appearance shrieked St Angela’s than she was of the pain and once there, it had turned out to be everything she expected and more.

  Eventually her baby had been born; he was a big baby and she had the stitches to prove it, but he was also healthy and loud with a big appetite. Most of all, he was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen and the thought of having to give him away haunted her every moment.

  She had visits from the Adoption Society and the hospital Almoner, even Father Tom made a fleeting visit during his rounds of visiting the sick, but no one else. Neither her mother nor her father came to see her because she was officially a St Angela’s girl and the shame that went with that was usually too much for parents to bear.

  Then a few days into her stay, a tall, elegantly dressed woman came and sat down beside her bed. ‘Hello, my dear. My name is Mrs Wheaton. I’m visiting young Ruby over there …’ she pointed across to where there was another young woman sitting upright in her bed with a man beside her in a wheelchair. ‘I know you’ve not met but Ruby told me the nurses have been particularly hard on you?’

  Gracie smiled politely. ‘It’s okay. I’ll be going soon, I’m being taken back just as soon as …’ she paused. ‘I can put up with it.’

  ‘Well, I’m disgusted by what she’s told me. I don’t have any authority but my husband over there is a doctor and he’s going to make sure nothing else happens. Now, is there anything you need?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Gracie had murmured. ‘I’m from St Angela’s and I’m not allowed to have anything …’

  The woman laughed, a gentle tinkling laugh that engulfed Gracie in kindness. It was the first time anyone had said a kind word to her since the day she’d been sent away.

  ‘Oh well now, we’ll soon see about that. I’ll be back in a minute; you’ll have the same as everyone else …’

  Gracie had wanted to cry, but instead she looked at the girl called Ruby again and smiled. That was the start of their friendship.

  ‘You have to push harder if we’re going to get this baby out … Come on, Gracie, push! There’s no time for this shilly-shallying around.’ The midwife’s voice was becoming more intense with each command. ‘Push this baby out, PUSH or you’ll have to have a caesarean section. You don’t want that, do you?’

  Gracie shook her head to clear the déjà vu. Through a haze of gas and air she vaguely realised that there were more nurses around the foot of the delivery bed than there had been before, including the ward sister. There was an atmosphere of carefully restrained urgency in the delivery room, but the pain was so unbearable she hadn’t got the energy to think too hard about it. As she lay there sweating and shivering, her feet immobilised in the stirrups attached to the bed, her dignity long gone, Gracie wondered if she was going to die. It even passed through her mind that she would actually choose to if it would mean an end to the never-ending agony that refused to let up. She knew something was wrong because it hadn’t been anything like that when she’d given birth to baby Joe.

  She couldn’t even remember how long she’d been there, how long it had been since Ruby had driven like a mad woman out to the hospital in Rochford where she’d been taken straight to the maternity ward.

  She remembered the pain escalating while she was in the car and Ruby screaming, ‘Hang on Gracie, hang on! You can’t have it in the car …’ but although the pain had continued to worsen during the rest of that day and night the baby still hadn’t arrived.

  They were already into the next day when the labour finally moved on and Gracie managed to do as she was told; she pushed and pushed so long and hard she felt quite demented but then she felt the baby slip out and the relief was so overwhelming she started to cry hysterically.

  But almost as quickly she calmed down and began to think straight she realised there was silence in the delivery room. No baby crying, no words spoken. Just silence.

  ‘What’s happening? Is the baby okay?’ Gracie asked, her slow, drawn-out words still slurred by the gas and air.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear, your baby is stillborn. He must have died in the womb …’ As the word was finally said it echoed round her head.

  Stillborn.

  He.

  Her precious baby, a boy, was dead. She didn’t have one. Her longed-for baby hadn’t even taken a breath. Gracie looked around at the sympathetic faces but she couldn’t say anything. S
he was so shocked, she hadn’t any words.

  But as she was trying to fight her cotton-wool brain to absorb the information, the physical pain which had subsided started again, with the waves building inside her until it was so unbearable she started screaming. Suddenly the furious activity in the room started all over again.

  ‘Call the doctor,’ she heard the Sister say urgently. ‘There’s another one in here. Call the doctor right away, this one’s all wrong. I can see a foot, the baby’s the wrong way up and it’s coming out that way. Tell him it’s an emergency …’

  By the time the next baby was painfully delivered with forceps Gracie was slipping into unconsciousness and haemorrhaging. She was unaware of being taken away from the maternity ward to the main part of the hospital and she was also unaware of the major operation that had saved her life – but it was an operation that also meant she would never have another baby.

  It was nearly three days before Gracie recovered enough to fully understand that she had given birth to twins, a boy who had died in the womb some weeks before and a tiny girl who was alive but small and fragile, and being cared for in an incubator.

  When she was finally told the full gravity of her experience Gracie had accepted it all calmly. She had expected to be punished for giving up her first-born and she had been.

  There would be no more babies. Ever. The price for Joe had been paid.

  ‘Have you told Sean?’ Gracie asked Ruby when she visited with Jeanette. ‘He should know …’

  ‘We tried to find him because the hospital wanted to speak to him to get permission for your operation but we couldn’t. He’s left the Palace and the flat. No one knows where he is.’

  ‘Is he with Jennifer?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ruby turned sideways to Jeanette and looked at her. ‘Do you know? Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Not a dicky bird and neither have Mum and Dad.’ She looked at her sister. ‘If it’s any consolation they’re mortified at what she did to you and they blame her for Fay being born too early; Mum is going mad with anger and shame. She can’t believe that the good girl out of the three of us has turned out to be the devil incarnate.’