War Babies

by Annie Murray

  ‘Rach – come and sit here!’ Netta was beckoning her towards an empty chair. As she went over Rachel saw to her surprise that Irene Sutton was already there too, with her girls. She had brought Irene along once before but last time she was going Irene said, ‘Oh no – I can’t be doing with that.’ Obviously she had changed her mind. She realized that Irene liked attention if she could get it, and this was one place where it was, at least briefly, on offer. She called out a greeting to her as she went to Netta and Irene nodded back. She was an odd sort, Rachel thought, sometimes friendly, sometimes looking through you almost as if she’d never seen you before. Now, she appeared as if she had a bad smell under her nose and was looking down on everyone around her.

  ‘All right, Nett!’ Rachel said, sinking down beside her. ‘Oh my word, it’s good to sit down.’ She looked anxiously at her friend, who she had not seen for a few days. Netta was now very heavily pregnant. ‘How’re you keeping?’

  ‘I’m grand,’ Netta said bravely, resting her hands on her huge, precious bulge. She was still a bag of nerves about this baby. ‘You look all in, Rach.’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right,’ Rachel said. ‘But I’ve been in one queue or another ever since I went out this morning.’ She leaned forward, massaging the ache in her lower back with both hands. Melanie toddled towards some of the other children and stood looking, her hands still up close to her chest.

  ‘I know,’ Netta sympathized. ‘I’m lucky that Mammy does the shopping. Even though I’m not working.’ They were doing everything they could to look after her. Netta had been working in a factory in Rea Street, but she had given up once she got to six months. ‘Francis says I’ve to be wrapped up in cotton wool. We don’t want to take any chances.’ Her eyes filled as they did whenever she started to talk about this child. She winced. ‘Mother of God, he’s kicking me today.’ Though her eyes filled with tears, she was smiling at the same time. ‘But he can kick me black and blue for all I care – it shows what a life he’s got in him.’

  ‘Sounds as if you’ve got a strong little man in there,’ Rachel said, full of sympathy. She had had no real problems having Melanie, or with this time around. But for poor Netta it had been such a hard road. Sometimes she had seen Netta looking at Melanie, her face brimming over with longing and sadness, and she ached for her. Surely this time it was going to be all right?

  Rachel noticed that Melanie kept turning to look at her, seeming uncertain. The other children were playing all around her and she obviously wanted to join in while at the same time not wanting to put down the precious treasure in her hands.

  Rachel was just about to say something to her when one of the nurses came over.

  ‘Mrs Fitzpatrick, we’ll see you now, please.’

  Netta struggled to her feet. Her frock, despite being a baggy pale green thing, was stretched tight over her bulge.

  ‘There you go.’ Rachel smiled at her. ‘Check everything’s all right.’

  ‘Tickety-boo.’ Netta rolled her eyes but she still looked worried to death.

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Fitzpatrick,’ the Scots nurse soothed her. ‘Everything’s going very well this time. But we just need to make sure.’

  Rachel watched Netta walk away, her mottled legs looking fragile, as if they would scarcely have strength to carry her.

  Her attention was brought back by a screech from nearby. During the few seconds while she was talking to Netta, she saw that Irene Sutton’s girls had gone to Melanie and were trying to get at what she was clutching so eagerly in her hands. Though they were skinny little things, they were tough and wiry. Rita, who was a couple of months off four, had got hold of some of Melly’s fingers and was trying to bend them back. Rachel was just moving over to them when Irene boomed across at them.

  ‘Oi – you two – Reet! Shirl! What’re yow doing?’ She scowled. ‘Girls – nothing but flaming trouble. This one’d better be a lad or I’ll drown the flaming brat.’

  Rachel heard a murmur of disapproval from some of the other women who were looking at her in horror.

  ‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ one said. ‘That’s disgusting, that is.’ Rachel was only glad that Netta had not been there to hear it.

  ‘Don’t you talk like that,’ she flared, going up to Irene. She got really sick of her sometimes, with all her fights with Ray keeping them awake and her changeable moods. She wasn’t afraid of her though, even if Irene did try to look intimidating. ‘That’s no way to talk – especially in front of them.’ She nodded at the children.

  ‘Who the ’ell d’yow think yower bossing?’ Irene started, but Rachel ignored her because Melanie was now screeching like a pig being killed.

  ‘No-o-o!’ she screamed. ‘Mine!’

  As Rachel hurried over to Melanie she saw Ruby, who had been dozing, wake with a violent start at the screams. ‘No!’ she cried, her face full of anguish for a moment. ‘No!’ No one took any notice.

  ‘Oi – you leave her alone,’ Rachel said, darting forwards to get Rita and Shirley away from her daughter before things could get any worse. She tried to speak calmly.

  ‘Leave ’er, Reet, Shirl,’ Irene called, though she was too heavily pregnant and too idle to get up and do anything about it. ‘Gerroff ’er.’

  Seeing Rachel standing over her, Rita gave her a fearful look and withdrew her hand.

  ‘I only wanted to see,’ she said. The girl seemed cowed. ‘What’s ’er got?’

  There was a pungent smell of orange in the air now. The girls must have caught the skin with their nails. The tangy smell made Rachel’s mouth water.

  ‘It’s an orange, from the greengrocer’s,’ she told the child, feeling sorry for her. ‘If you go with your mother I ’spect you can have one too.’ Fat chance of Irene bothering, she thought to herself.

  She looked across at Irene who was watching them, arms folded across her large bosom.

  ‘Leave it, Rita,’ she said lazily. ‘C’m’ere and sit down – stop mithering me.’

  But the girls seemed rooted to the spot, unwilling to move away. Rachel could almost see the saliva collecting in their mouths.

  ‘All right, Melly,’ she said to her daughter. ‘You come and sit down with me.’

  To her surprise, instead of obeying her, Melanie put her arm out, opening the hand containing the orange and offering it to the two girls who she saw as her friends from home. Neither of them took it. They looked confused. Some of the other children were starting to show an interest in the proceedings now.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Rachel insisted. ‘We’ll put it away for later and you can play with the children.’

  Melanie shook her head. ‘Have some,’ she insisted.

  ‘But it’s yours, Melly,’ Rachel said, feeling annoyed at the thought of sharing her daughter’s precious fruit with Irene’s scratty little girls, especially after she’d stood in that queue for it. ‘Don’t you want it all to yourself?’

  Melanie shook her head. ‘Have some,’ she said again.

  Swallowing her annoyance, Rachel said, ‘You want to share it? To give the other little girls some?’

  Melanie nodded emphatically. She seemed to feel rather grand now.

  ‘All right if I give them some?’ Rachel said to Irene.

  Irene, who had been ignoring the situation, looked back at her, astonished. ‘What, mine? Reet and Shirl?’

  ‘She wants them to have some.’ Although none of you flaming deserve it, she thought crossly.

  ‘Well – if that’s what ’er wants . . .’ Irene seemed disarmed, softer again. Like a different person. ‘D’yow want some, girls?’

  Rita and Shirley nodded, their eyes eager.

  ‘Hang on a tick then.’ Suppressing a sigh, Rachel rummaged in her shopping carrier for a paper bag and sat peeling the orange on it, using her thumbnail to pierce the skin.

  ‘That smells nice!’ some of the other women said.

  ‘I can smell it over ’ere,’ Irene said.

  It was quite a big
orange and by the time Rachel had the skin off it all the adults and children in the room were watching.

  ‘That’s an orange!’ old Ruby piped up suddenly. ‘Orange, that’s what that is!’

  Rachel separated all the pieces and gave one to Melanie, who put the end of it cautiously in her mouth. ‘Shall we give some to all the children?’

  Melanie nodded happily. She seemed less interested in the orange now it had been peeled open. Sucking her piece of fruit, she watched everyone with wide eyes. The clinic had turned almost into a party and she dimly realized that she was the one who had made it happen. Rachel handed out orange segments to the children and as there were pieces over, she gave the rest to the adults.

  ‘Ta!’ Irene said, taking hers with relish.

  Going over to Ruby, doing her best to look as if she was not trying to avoid breathing in the smelliness around her, she held out her hand.

  ‘What, me?’ Ruby looked up, childlike with amazement.

  Rachel nodded. ‘There’s a bit each.’

  ‘Ooh – ta very much.’ Ruby beamed and guzzled it down.

  ‘Good for the baby,’ Rachel said, not sure what else to say to her.

  She saved the last piece for Netta. When she came back from behind the screened-off examination area, she was wiping her face. She could hardly talk about this baby without dissolving into tears.

  ‘All right?’ Rachel asked, holding out the segment of orange.

  Netta nodded her thanks and sat down, nibbling on it. ‘She said so. Oh, I can’t believe it might be all right.’ The tears flowed again. ‘Francis is so excited.’

  Rachel smiled. It was quite hard to imagine pale, devout Francis Fitzpatrick getting excited about anything.

  The nurse came and called big Ruby in. They watched her haul herself off the chair and go along obediently, rocking from foot to foot.

  ‘God now, she’s a wreck,’ Netta said. ‘I’d wait for you, Rach –’ she picked up her cloth bag – ‘but I said I’d get back and give Mammy a hand.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Rachel said. ‘See you soon, Netta. Pop in if you can. Look after yourself.’

  ‘Oh – I will!’ She laughed and gave a wave. ‘Bye now.’ Rachel turned back to the ring of children, where Melanie was now happily playing with Rita and Shirley Sutton who were acting as if she was their little doll. For a second she caught Irene watching her. Irene was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, in that grey, old-fashioned frock of hers. There was a strange expression on her face as if she was trying to work something out. When she saw Rachel looking she turned her mouth down in the contemptuous way she often did, as if to say she was better than all of them, and turned away.

  Rachel looked at her. She didn’t really like Irene all that much; she was such a moody so-and-so. But she, Irene and Netta all lived in the same street. Their babies were all due within a few days of each other and Melly seemed to be fast making friends with Irene’s girls, poor little mites. It looked as if they were all going to be stuck with each other, whether they liked it or not.

  Thirty-One

  September 1943

  Two weeks later, Rachel was walking back from the shops on a hot, sticky day. Everything smelt stronger to her: whiffs of bins from the back courts, of horse muck and metallic factory smells. Fat green flies buzzed about, settling on the vilest things. And progress was slow, leading Melanie by one hand and carrying a bag of shopping in the other. She felt heavy and sluggish and in low spirits. A sharp pain niggled somewhere deep in her pelvis. It seemed an age since she had heard from Danny. Where was he? Why had he not written? But perhaps he had. There was no knowing when letters would arrive. Sometimes it was many weeks before she heard from him. At night she often lay in bed full of dark thoughts and fears that something terrible had happened, awful pictures of Danny injured, or worse, filling her mind, though she managed to banish them in the daylight.

  Pausing for a moment as her daughter dawdled, she winced as the muscles of her belly tightened, like a cramp.

  ‘Come on, Melly, walk a bit faster,’ she urged wearily. ‘Shall we sing “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and you walk along to that?’

  She looked down at the child, who was idly sucking one finger, and saw her eyes widen in surprise at something along the street. Rachel looked up to see a tiny, bird-like figure tearing along in her direction, dodging the other people in the street, apparently blind to everything. Rachel felt a surge of dread. Was something wrong with Netta?

  ‘Mrs O’Shaughnessy!’ she called to her.

  ‘Oh – it’s you, darlin’!’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy did not stop. ‘It’s our Netta – I’m going for the doctor.’

  ‘Has it started?’

  Mrs O’Shaughnessy was moving past her now but she turned and scrambled backwards for a moment. ‘She’s after having her waters go – and there’s only our Eamonn there and him not right in his wits . . . And Mrs Brown . . .’

  ‘Shall I go and be with her?’ Rachel called.

  Mrs O’Shaughnessy stopped for a moment, her watery blue eyes widening. ‘Oh, would you, darlin’? Yes, you go to her – God bless you!’ And off she scurried.

  Rachel scooped Melanie up into her arms, the shopping bag dangling, and lumbered along the street as fast as she could to the entry into the O’Shaughnessys’ yard. A woman, outside mangling her washing, called out to Rachel as she hurried along but Rachel ignored her and ran into the house. Even as she came in through the front door she could hear sounds of pain.

  In the downstairs room she found Netta half-slumped over the table, gasping. She was barefoot, again dressed in her green frock. Her thin hair was tied back and her face was pink and damp with sweat. Eamonn, seventeen and the youngest boy of the family, was sitting by the unlit range, wide-eyed and bewildered. Mrs Brown, a kindly, thin-faced lady of about fifty, still in her pinner with a pink scarf on, was standing behind Netta, making encouraging noises.

  ‘That’s it, bab – oh yes, that’s it!’ she said, in between frantically chewing at the ends of her fingers and not seeming to know what else to do. Rachel saw that there were already pans of water heating on the stove.

  Rachel almost dropped Melanie and the shopping on the floor. ‘Netta!’ she said as the wave of pain seemed to pass by. ‘It’s me – Rach.’

  Netta looked round and grabbed Rachel’s arm, her eyes full of fear.

  ‘Rachel! Oh my God, it’s started. Oh, I’m so scared . . . Something’s going to go wrong. I’m never going to have a healthy child, I just know it. God doesn’t want me to – He must be punishing me for something.’

  ‘Ooh, it’s no good talking like that, bab,’ Mrs Brown said. She seemed very flustered and uncomfortable. Rachel saw her eyeing up Mrs O’Shaughnessy’s Catholic statues and the sacred heart on the mantelpiece. ‘I’ve put some more water on to boil,’ she added, to no one in particular.

  Rachel put her arm around Netta’s back, feeling the hot moistness of her. ‘It’s all right – your mom’s gone for the doctor. She’ll be back in a minute. Just hang on, Netta, all right? You’re doing everything you’re supposed to do.’

  Netta was beginning to pant and another pain seized her. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, here it comes again!’ As she emerged from it she wailed, ‘There’s something wrong with it. It’s going to die, I know it is!’

  Mrs Brown kept tutting helplessly and saying things like, ‘No need to keep on like that.’ Rachel caught sight of Melanie, crouched as far away as she could get from Eamonn, who said not a word, looking terrified.

  ‘Go out in the yard and play, Melly,’ she ordered her. ‘Wait for me there – I won’t be long.’

  Melanie scampered outside with relief, away from all these alarming sights.

  ‘You’re all right,’ Rachel kept saying to Netta. ‘Just breathe nice and deep and your mom’ll be back soon,’ while the weight in her own body pulled on her and the hard jabbing pain deep inside her grew worse. She longed to sit down.

  It felt like an eternity before Mrs
O’Shaughnessy came hurtling back across the yard and burst into the house.

  ‘The doctor’s called an ambulance!’ she announced. Mrs Brown gasped, which Rachel did not think was very helpful. ‘He said you should have this one in the hospital.’

  Netta dissolved into sobs. ‘I told you!’ she cried. ‘There’s something wrong. I’m going to lose this one as well and what’ll I tell Francis? It’ll break his heart . . .’ She was so sure of it, so grief stricken, that Rachel found herself in tears as well, as if the worst was already happening. Soon, two orderlies appeared across the yard carrying a stretcher and Netta screamed and clung to the table, a look of utter terror on her face.

  ‘No! Mammy – don’t let them take me away!’

  ‘Come on now, Netta, they’re here to help you,’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy said. ‘To help the baby and make sure it’s all right.’ She didn’t seem too sure though and even as the two ambulance people, one man and one woman, came and spoke gently to Netta, Rachel felt very upset for her. Hospitals seemed frightening places to her.

  ‘Wait!’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy cried, running to the stairs. ‘Let me get her things.’

  Once on the stretcher Netta lay quiet, suddenly submissive. Rachel went and took her hand and squeezed it. ‘See you as soon as I can.’ She forced her lips into a smile.

  But it was a terrible feeling seeing Netta carried away, even if it was meant to be for the best.

  ‘Holy Mother,’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy said in desperate tones, sinking onto a chair. ‘For pity’s sake, let her be all right this time.’

  All that day after she got home, Rachel fretted about Netta, wondering what was happening. She told Gladys and Dolly what had happened and they all wondered and hoped for Netta, of whom they had all grown fond. Rachel could not settle to anything.