Birmingham Friends

by Annie Murray

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ I snarled. ‘We’ve been awake all night waiting for you.’

  ‘Oh, how quaint – thank you,’ she said, walking unsteadily to the kitchen table and sitting down. She gave an enormous yawn. ‘I must say, I’m all in.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ I found myself shouting, tearful, my voice sliding up to a wail. ‘Have you any idea how much worry you’ve caused? I’m supposed to be looking after you.’

  She put on a startled look. ‘Katie darling, you musn’t worry about me any more. You’ve got quite enough on your plate with the baby coming and everything.’ She stood up again and put her arms round me as I sobbed, the tension of the night releasing itself. ‘I want to give you all the help in the world.’

  ‘You smell of booze,’ I told her brutally. ‘And sex.’

  She put on her baby voice, then, that she usually reserved for Elizabeth, and which made me feel wild with rage. ‘I was just having one tiny night out,’ she wheedled. ‘Just for a little change. Don’t be cross with me, Katie.’

  I pushed her off me impatiently. ‘Olivia, come to your senses. You’re behaving like a blithering idiot. What d’you think you’re doing? You’re like a dog on heat.’

  ‘I just wanted a little bit of fun,’ she carried on, in the same silly voice.

  I lost my temper completely then. ‘If you go on like this you’ll end up getting pregnant again. Or you’ll get VD. Or both.’

  She looked at me smugly. ‘I’m not that stupid, Katie.’

  In a hard, clear voice, I said, ‘One more night like last night and you’re out of my house. Understand? Out. I’m not going to put up with it.’

  The tears came then, hers and mine again. She stood bereft in my arms. ‘No, Katie, please. I can’t manage without you. I promise I won’t do it again. I love you – I’ve got no one else. Please don’t send me away.’

  And I stroked her and soothed her, my anger bleached to tenderness, and told her, as I knew I should eventually, that she could stay with me as long as she liked.

  Anna. You were born in Selly Oak Hospital into a beautiful April dawn. Your birth was short and harsh, and even in my release of you I felt your energy. You wanted to be born, thrusting towards it urgently. The midwife in the hospital said, ‘That’s one of the best first births I’ve ever seen.’ And you screamed with all your force, all eight pounds of you, your hair wet and smooth on your head.

  I might have had you at home, but I decided not to for Olivia’s sake. She was with me when the first pains began and she was the first to see you, even before Douglas, who came after work.

  They had brought you for me to feed when she came in that afternoon. I was still in that exhausted, dreamlike state after giving birth, suddenly both empty and joyful, watching your face, letting your existence flow through me.

  And there she was, standing in the doorway, dressed smartly in a coat and wide-brimmed hat, both of which would need shedding in the warmth of the hospital. In her hand was a generous spray of freesias. There was a look on her face which was the most genuine and naked she had allowed herself in a long time. It was both hungry and profoundly anxious. I saw that her eyes were fixed not on me, but on the tiny child at my breast.

  She smiled suddenly and half ran forward. ‘Katie, oh Katie, you’re marvellous!’ She kissed me, laying the flowers beside my bed. ‘They told me it’s a girl. How was it, darling? Was it terrible?’

  ‘Not for long.’ I smiled. The experience was so close to me still, yet suddenly utterly irrelevant.

  Olivia’s moment of exposure had passed. From then on she was the model visitor, listening, concerned. When the feed was finished there was a nurse hovering to take you away again.

  ‘Would you like to hold her for a moment, before she has to go?’ I asked.

  She held you with awe, partly afraid, I could tell, gazing into your tiny, squashed face, her dark eyes wide and tender. She looked across at me and smiled. ‘She’s wonderful, Kate. She’s a miracle. Does she have a name yet?’

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘Just Anna?’

  ‘One name’s enough, I think.’

  ‘Of course it is. Little Anna.’ She raised you so gently and kissed your forehead before handing you to the nurse. You let out a roar and Olivia looked taken aback and then laughed. ‘Be happy,’ she said. ‘Little Anna.’

  Later the nurse said to me, ‘She’s a lovely-looking girl, that friend of yours. I thought I recognized her – or was it just my imagination?’

  If only Douglas could have seemed so lovely. He disliked seeing signs of human frailty and was very ill at ease in the hospital. I had hoped for him to be loving and awestruck, reaching out to his child. Instead, he was deeply uncomfortable in this public place of the ward, unable to expose any softer feelings he may have had.

  His progress along the wooden floor to my bed was rather like walking across a stage. I was so used to the sight of him that I barely thought of it, but I knew he sensed the eyes of the other women on his contorted leg, the terrible graceless walk.

  He said, ‘Hello,’ leaning over to give me a busines-like peck on the cheek, for which for a second I hated him.

  ‘Did they tell you we have a little girl?’

  ‘Yes.’ He sat down on the chair by the bed. ‘They told me. Are you all right, Katie?’

  The question came awkwardly. I suppose the act of giving birth was so foreign to him, so personal.

  ‘I feel better than I expected.’ There was a silence. ‘I thought we’d call her Anna.’

  Douglas nodded. ‘Whatever you like. Is she . . . she’s healthy and all that?’

  He was afraid, of course, that you’d be like him: not whole. That he would have marred you in some way.

  ‘She’s beautiful.’ I reached out to take his hand, which rested stiffly in mine. ‘Don’t worry. She’s a lovely baby. I’ll ask them to bring her, shall I? She’ll need feeding soon.’

  He was so awkward with you, Anna, right from the beginning. He watched your little form approaching in the nurse’s arms with a solemn face.

  ‘I’ll give her a little bit of a feed,’ I said. ‘Then she’ll be happy when you hold her.’

  The moment I started to feed you he was on his feet. ‘Look – I’ll go and have a cigarette outside. I’ll come back when you’ve finished.’ And he was off again along the ward as if he couldn’t get out fast enough.

  When he did come back and hold you, there was no engagement in it. He held you in the stiff way I have seen some other fathers put on with infants, not wanting to expose their tenderness, not knowing how. He rocked you too hard and made you cry. He never looked into your face deeply the way a mother would. To him you were my realm, something abstract, ‘a child’ for which he was in some way responsible.

  When I got home I was so grateful for Olivia being there. Douglas seemed to have nothing to give us. My mother called a few times, admired you in a professional sort of way, and made comments like, ‘I hope you’re not overfeeding her,’ but seemed unable to cope with being at a remove from you, so that she could not just take over. Her visits soon dwindled. But Olivia, for the first month, was as loving and helpful as I could ever have wished.

  At that time her devotion to us was so warming. I needed someone to rely on and she was always there offering to hold you, there for me to talk to. She was a comfort, while Douglas was more absent than ever.

  ‘She’s an absolute darling,’ she’d say, rocking you on her lap, her eyes fixed on your face. I can see her now, her hair curling on her shoulders, her look of adoration which made me ache for her. Once I said to her, ‘Doesn’t it make you feel sad, seeing her and holding her?’

  Without taking her eyes from your face, she said, ‘No, it’s marvellous. I could sit and hold her all day.’ She smiled, running her finger down your cheek. ‘That’d be heaven, wouldn’t it, little Anna?’ Then she looked up at me. ‘She’s ours, isn’t she?’

  I should have taken note of the strange intensity of
this, but I was happy then, feeling we shared you. She showed far more interest and feeling than Douglas, and I confided in her completely.

  ‘It’s so silly. Douglas is so jealous of the baby. He just can’t seem to adjust to it all. I feel so much for her and he just . . .’ My voice trailed off.

  ‘He does seem rather stiff with her,’ Livy said smoothly. She was busy now, knitting for me as we sat looking down the long garden, pansies flattening open in the sun. Now that I was a bit unsteady in myself and relying on her, she looked better, calm and secure.

  She reached out one hand to jiggle the pram slightly. ‘Never mind, little angel Anna. You’ve got two people here who love you. There’s nothing to worry about. Oh Kate – can I just give her another cuddle?’

  ‘Leave her!’ I protested impatiently. ‘I’ve only just this minute got her to sleep.’

  Olivia pouted. ‘All right. Better let her get her rest.’ She went back to her knitting, curling soft white wool round her fingers. After a moment she gave me a quizzical look, tilting her head. ‘Is everything all right with Douglas . . . otherwise, I mean?’

  I knew what she was asking. ‘The doctor advised us that there should be no intercourse for at least six weeks. You’ll know that, of course. I think Douglas feels pushed out. He doesn’t like to see me feeding her. I know that’s not an especially unusual reaction, but it’s still hurtful.’ I found myself unexpectedly in tears.

  ‘Poor Katie,’ Olivia said, coming over to put her arm round me. ‘And poor old Douglas. But still, you must do as they tell you,’ she went on in a silky voice. ‘You need time for your body to recover. Don’t let him push you into it, will you, before you’re ready?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I was laughing now. I was supposed to be the Health Visitor. I leaned against Olivia. ‘I’m sorry to be so soggy – and I’m so glad you’re here. This would all have been very lonely without you.’ We smiled, our eyes meeting, and I thought Livy looked happy.

  ‘D’you feel better?’ I asked.

  ‘I think so.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t want to keep examining it. I just want to be here, with Anna – and you.’

  I remember that month, its fractured nights, its intensity and blossoming of new feelings, only as a blur now, like a kind of illusion. There was sunshine, bright green leaves on the trees, walks pushing you in the huge, heavy pram in which I myself had lain as a child and which my mother produced in magnificent condition from where it had been stored, swathed in canvas, in the cellar. There were quiet times sitting in the park, light shimmering on the water; there was watching Olivia’s face at the sight of you and feeling that you were healing her; and my own contentment: your eyes wide over the top of a white sheet, reflecting sky.

  But there was also Douglas’s discomfort with our new state, his absence and immersion in work, always his resort. There was my mother’s stiff detachment from us. And then there was the day when I heard you screaming downstairs while I was resting, leaving you in Olivia’s care. On coming down I found you beside yourself with frustration, and Olivia’s face all red, her hands grabbing at the front of her blouse which was open to reveal her breasts. I stood staring with an icy fury of which I barely knew I was capable.

  ‘I just thought I might be able to do it,’ she said, in that stupid, childlike voice again. ‘To save you the trouble while I’m looking after her.’

  Trembling, I snatched you from her without a word, and ran upstairs, holding you close, so tight and close to me.

  Chapter 27

  ‘We thought you’d gone off us,’ Lisa said, when I arrived that Sunday afternoon, baby in arms. Don and the boys were out.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been dying to see you.’ As I spoke I realized just how true that was, how Olivia’s company weighed on me. I had had to get out, to have a rest from her. I’d managed to be away from home most of the day by going to church in the morning.

  Lisa and I sat side by side with cups of tea on the table and babies on our laps. Lisa had her little girl, Alice, who looked small at the side of my Anna, but whose face was full of character, her nose cheeky and snub. Daisy, a quaint, fussing little thing now in a dress at least a size too big, hovered around us.

  ‘She’s mad about babbies,’ Lisa said, after we had been admiring the little girls together. Daisy slid from one to the other, kissing them and stroking their heads until Lisa had to say, ‘Go easy now, Daze, eh?’ The babies followed her with their eyes, giving gummy smiles.

  Lisa looked robust and content. ‘She was the easiest of the lot,’ she told me. ‘She got ’ere in a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’ll have to get more practice, obviously.’ I laughed.

  ‘You’re looking all right on it, though.’

  I played with Daisy for a while, giving her a Ladybird book I’d brought with some pictures and simple words in. Daisy pointed and said, ‘Dog. Flower. S’easy, this is.’

  ‘’Ow’s your friend coming on?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘Bit by bit, I think. It’s a slow business, though. Have you seen anything of Joyce, or Jackie?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘Not really, now you mention it. Funny thing is, they said ’ardly a word about it after. I thought they’d be full of it, you making a fool of him like that. But they all just went.’

  ‘They were ashamed.’

  Lisa’s brow crinkled into lines of surprise. ‘Ashamed?’

  ‘When it came to facing him like that. I was ashamed too. Wouldn’t you have been?’

  ‘Me?’ Lisa hoiked Alice further up in her arms. ‘Nah. There’s a lot of men around’ll use you for anything – wipe the floor with you if it suits ’em. Don’t see why we should spend our lives kowtowing to ’em.’ With her free hand she topped up my cup of tea. Then, as if a connection had been made in her mind, she said, ‘How’s your ’usband?’

  I longed to be honest, to say, he’s a detached stranger who I don’t know how to be with any longer and I’m not sure I even like. But who is ever so honest?

  ‘He’s well,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ But I found myself adding, ‘Lisa – has Don ever minded, when you’re feeding Alice?’

  ‘You mean is he jealous?’ She thought about it. ‘Can’t say as I’ve ever asked ’im. ’E just ’as to put up with it. Why, is your old man?’

  ‘It is rather difficult at the moment,’ I told her stiffly. I found it so hard to confide about my marriage. Lisa was much more matter-of-fact about the subject of hers. But I had been brought up to regard this subject as the proverbial closed book. It was only Granny Munro who had let me into her feelings, shown me that her marriage had survived despite so many things.

  ‘Course, I know some do carry on a bit. Come to think of it, Agnes over there’ – she jerked her head in the direction of a house along the court – ‘ ’as some right ding-dongs with ’er old man. On and on ’e goes, and it’s always worse when ’e thinks the babbies’re getting ’is share of ’er titties.’

  I laughed. ‘That reminds me of Marj Redmond, an old Health Visitor I used to work with. She said they only ought to allow people to get married if the wife spoke only French and the husband only German.’

  Lisa gave an explosive chuckle. ‘That’s about it though, in’t it? That’s marriage all over for you.’

  But I could tell from her tone and from the look of her that Don and she were far happier together than Douglas and I.

  ‘Lisa,’ I told her, ‘it’s unbelievably good to see you.’

  I would have liked a longer journey home. As the bus ground its slow way along the Alcester Road towards Kings Heath I sat with you, warm and sleepy on my lap. I wished I could just stay there and follow the route right out of the city to anywhere, in order to sit there and have some peace.

  The week before there had been a scene with Douglas. After I came home from hospital I had, as promised, sent a line to Roland Mantel. He had been kind and interested that time on the train, and I hoped he’d pass on the news to Marjorie.

  Roland arrived one afte
rnoon when Olivia was out shopping. I was taken aback by the rush of pleasure I felt at seeing him.

  ‘Got the opportunity of a little bit of time off,’ he said in apologetic tones from the doormat. He rotated the brim of an old panama hat nervously between his fingers, his round face looking red and moist. ‘I expect you’re busy. Am I an awful bother?’

  ‘Not at all, Roland.’ I found I was smiling broadly. ‘I’ve just put the baby out in the garden. Do come through and have a drink, won’t you?’

  ‘Well, if that’s really all right.’ He followed me down the hall, every gesture of his body self-effacing. He made admiring noises about the house. ‘You’ve got it looking so nice, haven’t you? I’m afraid I’ve been rather lazy with mine – the people before left it in reasonable repair and I’ve done next to nothing on it. Not one of my skills in any case.’ He laughed.

  In the garden he said, ‘I thought I must come and see the baby before she’s off to school – you know how the time goes!’ He gave another little chuckle and I waited for him to relax. His nervous nature could make him sound so silly. Once relaxed out of that, the kind, sympathetic person could emerge.

  He beamed with pleasure bending over to look into the pram. You were asleep, your face round and relaxed, arms flung out beside your head, hands clenched into plump fists. ‘Oh, isn’t she a poppet!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh, Katie, I do envy you, you know. There’s nothing I’d like more than a family of my own.’

  I smiled gratefully at him. ‘I’m sure you will have one one day. And you’ll make a lovely, devoted father.’

  He sat with me for a while. He declined beer, so I fetched tea and an ashtray and he sat, his short legs encased in grey flannel, smoking and chatting to me, gradually losing his twitchy demeanour. Marjorie was expecting her first child and sent her love. We spent an unruffled half hour, refreshing to me for its lack of angles or tension.

  ‘I’d love to come again,’ Roland said. He lingered by the pram before leaving. ‘And perhaps she’ll be awake next time?’ I assured him of a welcome.

  Douglas found the ashtray, forgotten between the chairs in the garden, when he came home from work. He went outside for a smoke in the summer evening air and came crashing back in again, holding the ashtray away from him like a half-decayed bird.