Across the sea in Ballina, her stepmother began her birth pangs a few weeks later. This time in the back bedroom of the Heaney Hotel, with a doctor and a midwife in attendance.
The hotel was shut in the winter months, allowing Frank and Bridget to take a rest from it. They sat in the kitchen listening to the moan of the wind in the garden treetops as they waited for the midwife to come downstairs.
“Surely she’d be down by now wanting a kettle of water,” whispered Bridget, scared to speak at all, in case she missed any of the noises that came from overhead.
“I don’t know much about it, Bridget, as yer know. I don’t know why yer want me here at all.”
“Moral support or if there’s a problem, Frank. Though the doctor’s up there with her anyway. Poor Maggie, she’s been at it now since Thursday morning. I think that’s why the midwife’s got him here.”
“Well, how long does it take fer a woman to have a baby? Hours, days, weeks? Never having been in that position, I’m not sure what is going on.”
“Yer want to hear of the tales that Agatha comes out with. Yer know, tales of the girls giving birth in the convent. She was only telling me about this young woman who…”
“No, Bridget! No more.” Frank put his hands over his ears, so he couldn’t hear his wife. “I think I’ll go down to the river and drop in fer a drink at Matty’s. His wife’s got six, yer know and I’ve never heard him complain.”
“Get me some fish from Hancock’s then on yer way back. Maggie always likes a bit of fish on Fridays, so I’ll steam her some fer after the birth.”
Bridget was left alone, waiting anxiously. Should she go up to the bedroom and offer to make them all a cup of tea? They must be really needing one by now. Poor Maggie. It was after she had got out of bed yesterday morning that she had complained to Bridget that her back was sore and aching. Bridget had ordered her back to bed and sent Frank down to Mrs. Murphy’s to say that Maggie’s time had come.
Upstairs in Maggie’s bedroom, the doctor shook his head in despair at the woman who lay white-faced and weak with her efforts to bring her baby into the world.
“I should have been called earlier, Mrs. Murphy. It’s lying across her instead of down. No wonder there’s been nothing happening for the past few hours.”
The plump, round-faced midwife jerked her head at his accusation from where she was standing at the end of the bed.
“I was under the impression that Mrs. Haines has not had a child fer twenty three years, doctor,” she countered coldly. “This means the birth is bound to be a slow one, just like it is her first.”
“Yes, that is a probability, but did yer check its position and listen to its heart?”
“I did all that and I’ve been trying to coax the child into the birth channel, but every time I do that it goes across again. That’s why I sent fer you, Doctor. The patient has had hours of fruitless pain and agony and now she needs more help than I can give.”
“Yes, well, you were right to do so,” Dr Kerrigan said, mollified. He drew himself up to his full height of five feet nine inches and grimaced at the task he had ahead.
“There’s an opium mixture in my bag, give her some of that so she’s out of it a little. Then whoever is in charge of boiling water, I want a bowl for washing my instruments and I think we could do with a hot cup of tea.”
The midwife nodded and, after coaxing Maggie to take a good slug of the doctor’s brownish-coloured liquid, sped down the stairs where Bridget lay in waiting.
“Is Mrs. Haines all right, Mrs. Murphy? Can I be of any help?”
“Yes, yer can be of help, Mrs. Heaney. Your friend needs your prayers; she’s barely coping. The little one’s lying across her, so all her efforts have come to nothing. We need a bowl of hot water and the doctor’s asking fer a cup of tea. I’ll have one too if possible. Me hands are shaking – look at them.”
“Oh, poor Maggie. I’m glad I’ve never had any babies, Mrs. Murphy. I hear so many awful tales from our Agatha, yer know, me sister who’s at the convent where they take in fallen women? I used to think I was missing something by not having any, but we’ve been so busy with the hotel and that, it wouldn’t have been fair to have brought one up in our kind of world.”
“Children cope in most places, Mrs. Heaney, but as yer know, not everyone is blessed with a gift of one. I’ve been lucky really, all mine have reached adulthood and gone off to make new lives fer themselves, but I’ve never had the problems like Mrs. Haines is having. Mine couldn’t wait to get here, they came out like one of Hancock’s slippery eels!”
“Do yer think the doctor will be able to help her?” Bridget asked anxiously, while she poured the water from the boiling kettle into a large mixing bowl.
“Oh, he’s bound to,” the midwife said confidently, as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, waiting for the bowl to be handed over. “Can yer bring up the tea and leave it outside the bedroom door? I saw a small table on the landing that yer could put it on. I’d better go now; his tools of the trade have to be soaked in this water, then we’ll wait until that medicine he’s given her starts to do the trick.”
Maggie lay on her bed, staring in desperation at the ceiling. Her stomach felt as if she’d been crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded farm cart. There’d been no respite from it since Bridget had insisted that she went back to her bed. The midwife had been so tender at first, massaging the base of her back, murmuring encouragement every time another pain had gripped, listening intently through her little ear trumpet at the large and rippling mound. But a little while ago – or was it hours ago? – the midwife had seemed to sense a problem. The baby’s head had not come down; it was lying across Maggie’s stomach instead.
“I might have to send fer the doctor, Mrs. Haines,” she had said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “I’ll try me best to bring it round before I do so, but I think he’d best be here anyway. Now breathe fer me like this, while I do it.” And she showed Maggie how to breathe in deeply, wait and then breathe out slowly again.
The excruciating pain was too much then, and Maggie screeched as the woman tried in vain to turn the baby. She felt a jolt and then a settling, then the light around her seemed to fade away. The midwife tried again, this time without Maggie’s help or caring. She’d gone for a moment to a different place, where there was no sense of time or pain.
She awoke to misty shadows, with a man standing above her, staring down at her face. A familiar face, but one that was looking very grim.
“Mrs. Haines, it’s Doctor Kerrigan. A little problem with the baby. Can you hear me, dear? I’ll need your co-operation if we’re to get the child safely out of there.”
She stared back at him dazedly, then nodded, willing him to do anything that would take this pain from Hell away. Then the midwife brought a horrible-tasting mixture and it seemed as if her body had started floating then; floating above the bed, while she looked on down at the scene below.
She saw her legs were raised and parted just like a chicken, a chicken that was ready for the stuffing to be placed inside. Then the doctor putting his head on her stomach while plunging his hand and arm within. An odd sensation, a strange sensation; as if the man was rearranging the contents of her insides. Then a pulling, a tugging, a mighty plop, then the man’s head appearing above her again.
“Start pushing, Mrs. Haines! Mrs. Murphy, hold her hand and I’ll tell her when to push again! I can see the head, ah, push now, stop, push now, rest. Oh, God, she’ll not be feeling her contractions, I’ll have to get the forceps and do the rest myself!”
The midwife ran to Bridget’s mixing bowl and lifted out a pair of metal blades. She wiped them carefully with a birthing cloth and handed them to the sweating doctor. She watched in fascination as he attached one blade to each side of the baby’s little head and started pulling. There wasn’t any movement, so he shouted to Maggie to try to push again. From somewhere inside his patient’s brain the command began to filter and she heard this
terrible mooing sound, like a cow that had its byre nearby.
“Got it! Ah, she’s a little beauty,” the doctor gasped, then he cut the cord that attached the child to Maggie, turned the infant upside down and slapped it sharply on the shoulder. The child took in a lung full of air and began to cry plaintively.
“It’s yellow, doctor,” Mrs. Murphy said wonderingly, as she took the whimpering baby off him and wrapped it up in a large square of rag.
“Have yer seen this? It’s like one of those chinky babies.”
She lowered her voice and said to the doctor.
“Do yer think the father was one of those Chinese men?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I met the now-deceased Mr. Haines last year and he looked as white as you or me do. Anyway, see to Mrs. Haines, will you? Give me the child back and I’ll call for Mrs. Heaney. She can be cleaning and dressing it downstairs while you make your patient comfortable. I fear that our tea will probably have gone cold now, so perhaps she can be persuaded to make another one.”
Maggie groaned as Mrs. Murphy pressed on her sore stomach in an effort to bring out the afterbirth. The feeling was beginning to return in her body and everything that the opium mixture had managed to block out returned with a vengeance. She felt so weary. She wanted to sleep for a million years, or at least until these horrible pains had gone away from her. Something kept dragging in the back of her mind and she wondered why it was that she’d been suffering such a torment. Perhaps an even worse bout of ‘flu than the one she’d caught in Liverpool that time. Though why did her private parts below feel so sore and tender?
“Doctor’s taken her down to Mrs. Heaney. He’ll be slipping a drop of brandy into his cup of tea by now.”
“Taken who? Oh!” It all came flooding back to her. “Taken my baby. What did I have? Oh God, the suffering.”
“You had a little girl. A tiny little thing, but doctor says she’s a beauty. Yer wouldn’t believe that such a little thing could cause such mayhem. We nearly lost yer, Mrs. Haines, in fact at one time I thought we had! But never mind, here yer still are. Now, lift yerself up for me and I’ll clear away those dirty rags.”
Down in the kitchen the doctor was helping himself to a tot of brandy while Frank did the honours of making the tea. Bridget clucked away like a mother hen, as she washed the tiny newborn on a clean towel laid on the table.
“Poor little thing, what did the doctor do to yer then? Will these little bruises go, Dr Kerrigan? I could put some arnica on. Oh, in a day or two, they’ll begin to fade then. Have yer seen her tiny lashes, Frank? They’re like little curly feathers, and look at her sweet little nails; they look like tiny shells you’d find on the shore. Oh, the little dote. Come to me, sweetheart, while I wrap yer up in the pretty shawl your mama made yer. Oh, Frank, isn’t she adorable? just come and have a look.”
“There is a bit of a problem, Mrs. Heaney,” the doctor broke in, as Bridget happily cuddled the child to her chest.
“You’ll have noticed that her skin is a bit on the yellow side, which isn’t natural at all. I don’t know what causes it and it could clear up in a few days.”
“They’ve had that at the convent,” Bridget said. “ Yer know I have a sister there, Doctor? She’s always telling me what goes on with those fallen women that are in her care. Perhaps she could tell us what to do next time we see her.”
“A better idea would be to take the baby over,” said her husband. “ Better to be safe than sorry, don’t yer think?”
“I would agree with you, Mr. Heaney, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mrs. Haines should be suckling her baby now. Ideally, the child should have gone straight to the breast, but I had given my patient a good deal of mixture to help her through it all and I don’t want it to affect her baby in any way. I could bind her breasts though and give her time to recover, then when you bring the baby back we could unbind her breasts again.”
“But meantime, what will the baby live off? It’s not as if we could lay our hands on a bottle and a teat, is it, Frank?”
“Surely the convent could solve that problem too?”
The doctor looked at his fob watch. It was time he was off; his job was done. His tummy was rumbling and he knew his housekeeper would be keeping his dinner warm for him.
“I’ll look in on Mrs. Haines next time I’m passing, but meanwhile I’ll leave you all in the midwife’s capable hands.”
“He shot off a bit quick, didn’t he?” said Mrs. Murphy, when she came down to burn the rags on the kitchen fire.
“Did he say anything about all this yellowy skin? Oh, look, she’s sleeping; she must be as tired as her mammy.”
“I was telling him that they’ve had babies like this at the convent and Frank suggested we took her there so the nuns could take a look.”
“I don’t know,” said the midwife, uncertainly. “She hasn’t had a feed yet, but her mother’s so exhausted that she’s fallen asleep. Do yer think yer could get her back in a couple of hours?”
“The doctor was saying that he’d given Maggie a little mixture, so he was going to bind her breasts up for a little while anyway.”
“Oh yes, the opium. I suppose he thinks it would be dangerous if that was passed on through the breast milk. Well, I’ll do as he says and I’ll bind her up, as long as you’re back in a couple of hours.”
“Does anybody know what Maggie was going to call this baby?” asked Frank, as he took the child from his wife, while she filled a basket with cloths and baby clothes then donned her heavy shawl.
“Yes, she told me yesterday,” the midwife said. “It’s Rosemary. Rosemary fer a little girl, Bernard fer a boy.”
Chapter 22
Eddie came striding into the drawing room at Selwyn Lodge where Hannah was sitting breastfeeding Georgie. Her husband’s eyes were angry as he threw himself down beside her on the settee.
“What’s got you into a tizzy, Eddie?” Hannah asked, as she pushed little Johnny towards his father. “See, grab Johnny before he falls over, will you? He’s taken his first steps today and he keeps falling down and hurting himself.”
Eddie lifted the child up on to his knee, feeling himself growing calmer as he stroked his little boy’s downy head.
“Mr. Arlington’s been into the office. Richard said he called in this morning and was wanting to know where Maggie is. Said he wanted her address and the address of her solicitor. Yer know what all this is about, don’t you?”
“Well, it’s obvious that Alice sent him. Probably on behalf of Michael. It doesn’t matter, does it, Eddie? I thought we had decided to make life difficult for him.”
“It’s not that, it’s all this sneaking around that gets to me. Why can’t Michael just turn up on the doorstep here instead of getting his grandma and Mr. Arlington involved?”
“Because basically, Michael’s a coward. Always has been really. When we were little he was always running to Maggie or telling our nursemaid instead of squaring up to me.”
Eddie smiled. “So yer weren’t Miss Goody Two Shoes then? That’s what you’ve always told me?”
“No, I wasn’t. But he can have the lot in a couple of months when we’ve moved ourselves into Redstone House.”
“It’s a pity that Maggie hasn’t written back yet,” Eddie remarked. “I’d be a whole lot happier if she’d sent over some legal papers for us. We don’t even know if she wants Michael to take over the business and the absence of her authorisation is making me think that she doesn’t.”
“Well, whatever she thinks it’s too late now, isn’t it? You’ve put down the money for our new house now. Come on, cheer up, soon you’ll be the Master of all you survey!”
That’s the trouble, Eddie thought worriedly. Will I be the Master of very much?
“Where you just passing by, Eddie, or are you finished for the day? It looks rather murky outside. I suppose we can’t expect anything different at this time of the year.”
“I’d popped in to see Richard over something, Hannah, that�
�s when he told me. I’m on me way to Daisy Bank to check out two of the villas. We’ve two families wanting to move in before Christmas, but with darkness coming so early now there’s a bit of a scramble to be ready in time.”
“I’ve every faith in your capabilities, my darling,” said Hannah. “On your way out tell Olive to bring me in a cup of tea, will you? Oh and by the way, she’s leaving when we do. She’s gone and found herself another place.”
Katie walked down the High street to wait at the Cross to catch the hospital visitor’s bus. She had stayed again at Annie’s house, hoping and praying that a letter would come from Michael. It had been weeks now since their afternoon tea at Seagull Cottage; something that she looked back upon with an excited little thrill. She was visiting Barleymow Terrace a lot more now than she used to do, making Annie wonder if she was being checked upon. Their brother had appeared from heavens knows where and a repentant Annie now cooked and cleaned for him.
Or rather, Mrs. Piper did, so Katie thought. She had a lot of sympathy for Annie’s mother in law.
It was three days before Rosemary was returned to Maggie. Three days that Maggie hardly noticed, as she lay in her bedroom drifting in and out of a sleep-filled haze. The midwife had tiptoed in apologetically, changing her patient’s bindings, smoothing warm castor oil on her patient’s tender breasts, helping her onto the chamber pot and wiping down her hands and face.
It was a bit of a shock for Maggie when she suddenly found herself staring down at the trusting face of a tiny infant, its brown eyes staring up at her and its round pink mouth twitching hungrily.
This must be Rosemary, Maggie sighed; her and Johnny’s love child.
Bridget was standing at the end of the bed, watching the reunion gleefully.
“See, Maggie. The nuns have worked their miracles. Pinker than pink now they’ve got rid of that awful yellow. I knew they would, and now our little Rosemary’s reunited with her mammy.”
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