‘Yes but—’
‘Florence darling,’ he said, and he looked very serious suddenly, very intense, ‘there is a war on, you know. Even your mother must face that fact. Everyone is having to make sacrifices. Even if I were still living in Wilt shire, we would be a great deal less well-off. Now any remaining stock I have she is welcome to, I will write to Larry Jacobs and tell him that, but it won’t be much. Charles had some money, Grace, of course. I don’t know if you could find it in your heart to help Muriel. He was left quite a large sum of money by my father, it was invested in various gilts, I expect he told you about it—’
‘No,’ said Grace, surprised, ‘no, he didn’t. I wonder why—’
‘Well, anyway, there should be some income from that. So you’re all right presumably.’
‘Yes. Yes of course. Don’t worry about me.’
‘I shall always worry about you, poppet. My little friend.’ He reached out, patted her hand, looked at her with an expression of great tenderness. ‘And Florence, Robert is an extremely rich man. I imagine he has made satisfactory arrangements for you, no matter what has passed between you. If not—’
‘Yes,’ said Florence, carefully vague, ‘yes of course.’
They left him at five to visit Florence’s house, promising to return at six-thirty for a quiet supper. The sky was cloudy; ‘We shouldn’t get any raids tonight,’ said Clifford.
‘And can we sleep here?’ asked Florence. ‘I don’t fancy the house, it’ll be freezing.’
‘Yes of course. You can have a room each and I’ll get out the camp bed.’
‘Clifford,’ said Grace firmly, ‘I’ll sleep on the camp bed. I absolutely insist.’
The house in Sloane Avenue was fine; intact, unbroken into. It was a pleasant surprise. Crime in London had reached unheard-of proportions; even the dead were not sacred, freshly bombed houses and corpses were searched for handbags, wallets, even jewellery. Florence stood in the drawing room, looking round at the shrouded furniture, the fine fireplace, the shuttered windows. ‘I was so thrilled with this house,’ she said, ‘when Robert bought it. Now it seems like part of a terrible dream.’
Grace didn’t answer.
They went to bed early. Florence phoned Muriel purporting to be at the Priory, told her everything was fine.
Clifford had consumed two bottles of wine, the best part of a bottle of whisky, and several glasses of brandy with the devilled dried egg he had cooked. He had remained comparatively articulate, continuing to relate and demand gossip, professing great interest in what he called Grace’s little boys – ‘You must bring them to see me’ – and her war work, fussing over Florence and her impending confinement. He managed to get to his room but there was a crash as he fell over a chair, a groan as he collapsed onto the bed. Grace went up and found him virtually unconscious in all his clothes, face downwards.
‘He would never hear the air-raid siren,’ she said to Florence. ‘I think it’s terribly dangerous.’
Florence looked at her very soberly. ‘I honestly think it would be better if he didn’t,’ she said. ‘He seems to have given up on life.’
It was two in the morning when Grace woke up, to find Florence shaking her. She was confused, disorientated.
‘What is it? Air raid, what?’
‘No,’ said Florence, and sat down heavily on the sofa. Grace realized her teeth were chattering. ‘No. I – well, Grace, I think I’m in labour.’
‘What! Florence, you can’t be.’
‘Why can’t I be?’ said Florence irritably. ‘That’s a stupid thing to say. I’m pregnant, aren’t I?’
‘Yes but—’
‘Look, Grace, either I’ve wet the bed or my waters have broken. Mrs Merrow said they’d do it at an inconvenient time and she was right.’
‘Does it hurt yet?’ asked Grace, struggling to sit up.
‘No, not yet. My back aches a bit. But I think I’d better get to hospital. Don’t you?’
Grace was impressed by her calm. ‘Yes. Yes of course I do. But which one, where—?’
‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ said Florence. ‘Couldn’t you ring 999 or something?’
‘Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll do it. You go and get your things, Florence. Or would your father’s doctor be a better idea?’
‘Yes, possibly. I suppose it’s not an emergency. I – ooh,’ she winced.
Grace looked at her nervously. ‘Pain?’
‘Yes. Only a – a sort of nip. Nothing serious. Nothing like it will be, I’m sure.’ She tried to smile. ‘Yes, try Daddy’s doctor. It’s in that little book there. No use trying to wake him, I suppose.’
‘No use at all,’ said Grace, who had looked in already on the inert, snoring heap on Clifford’s bed.
The doctor didn’t answer the phone; on and on they rang.
‘Must have been a consulting room,’ said Florence. ‘Ouch.’
Grace looked at her anxiously. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Anyway, better try 999. Or maybe the woman next door might—’
‘No,’ said Grace, ‘let’s not waste any more time.’
The ambulance service was not particularly helpful. They were very short-staffed, they said, the sky was clearing and there might be a raid, and where did they think Florence could go anyway?
‘The ’ospitals are full, love, full to overflowing. If you don’t have anything booked—’
‘But she’s in labour,’ said Grace desperately. ‘Prematurely.’
‘Well, there’s nothing much to deliverin’ a baby, love. Did two meself last week, in a shelter.’
‘But I can’t, I mean—’
He clearly heard the terror in her voice. ‘All right, love, I’ll see what I can do. Give me your phone number.’
An hour later nothing had arrived. Florence was timing her pains – ‘That’s what it said you should do in my book’ – which were coming every fifteen minutes. They weren’t very bad, she said, but growing stronger every time. Grace looked at her with increasing fear. Her only knowledge of childbirth had been gleaned from books, Gone with the Wind being the most graphic and recent; her grasp of the procedure was not good.
She was about to go and ring the bell next door when the phone rang. It was the ambulance service – her friend from earlier. ‘Someone’ll be there in five minutes, love. Take her to St John’s in Victoria. They’ve just about got room.’
‘Oh,’ said Grace, relief flooding her, ‘oh thank you so much.’
But it was actually half an hour before the ambulance came.
Florence’s calm was deserting her. ‘I don’t like this,’ she kept saying through chattering teeth, ‘I don’t like it at all.’ She was holding Grace’s hand, and when the pain came, which it did more forcefully now, she clung onto it with both of hers.
‘Right then,’ said the ambulance man cheerfully. ‘Let’s get you into the van, love. Nice comfy bed for you, all made up, you’re lucky. You coming with her?’ he said to Grace.
‘Well, I don’t think—’
‘Of course she is,’ snapped Florence.
‘But—’
‘You’d better, love. They may be short-staffed, never know what might happen these days. You can ride in the front and I’ll sit with your friend in the back. You all right, love?’
‘Not really,’ said Florence. She doubled over suddenly, her face wrenched with pain.
‘’ow often they coming?’ said the man.
‘Every – every fifteen minutes,’ said Florence with difficulty.
‘Oh, you got hours to go yet. Nothing to worry about. Come on, hop in.’
Grace got in the front feeling sick. Halfway down Park Lane Road, the air-raid siren went off.
‘Christ,’ said the driver. ‘Jesus Christ Almighty. Hold on, miss. Race now between us and Jerry. Everything all right in the back, Fred?’
‘Fine. She’s doing fine, aren’t you, darling?’
Grace couldn’t hear Flor
ence’s reply.
The driver put his flashing light and his siren on, and his foot down. Grace, sitting there as the sky filled with thunder and fire, clinging to her seat, thought she must have died and gone to hell. Her only comfort was that they seemed at least to be going away from the raid; the noise and the light was behind them. The ambulance was going so fast it was throwing her from side to side, hurting her. God knows what it’s doing to Florence, she thought.
The streets were empty of traffic; she looked at the speedo meter, 60 it read. Sixty miles an hour, in this horror.
‘Not long now,’ said the driver, whose name he had confided to her through clenched teeth was Harry, ‘couple more minutes. Christ Almighty –’ This was occasioned by a bomb which seemed to Grace to have dropped right behind them, and was actually, she was told, at least five miles away. He took the next corner on what seemed to be two wheels, tyres screeching. Grace heard a scream from somewhere inside the ambulance at the same time and realized it was herself. Finally they stopped; she got out and looked at the dingy entrance to St John’s Hospital in some dread.
The woman in the reception of Casualty, who seemed to be some kind of a clerk, was neither helpful nor encouraging.
‘This is Casualty, we’re not really equipped for maternity cases. Where was your friend booked in?’
‘In the country. In a nursing home in Wiltshire,’ said Florence through gritted teeth. She was sitting in a wheelchair now, white-faced, gripping the arms.
‘Well, you should be there then.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Florence, ‘I’m not, I’m here and it’s certainly not through choice, I do assure you.’
‘Look,’ said Grace hurriedly, anxious that they would both be put out on the street if Florence really started being tactless, ‘look, she’s in a lot of pain, we were told we could come here, surely someone can look after her.’
‘Listen to me,’ said the woman with a look of great contempt. ‘In the last few months we’ve had women in here in real pain. With their feet amputated, with their legs crushed, having lain beside their dead husbands or children for hours on end trapped in half-collapsed buildings. I really can’t get too worked up about a baby, I’m afraid. Now she can go and wait in that cubicle, and I’ll phone the labour ward, see what I can do. We could get some air-raid cases any minute, overflow from the Hammersmith, in which case you’ll probably have to look after her yourself for a bit. There is a war on, in case you hadn’t heard down there in the country.’ She pronounced the last three words with icy contempt.
Grace pushed Florence and her wheelchair over to the cubicle, helped her onto the bed, tried to sound cheerful. ‘I’m sure it won’t be long,’ she said, ‘and they’re bound to be busy.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Florence. ‘Christ. Oh Christ.’
Her eyes in her white face were suddenly huge, frightened; her body arched in pain, her hands gripped the edge of the bed. ‘It hurts,’ she moaned, ‘Grace, it bloody well hurts.’
Grace, not knowing what else to do, tried to smooth her hair; Florence pushed her hand away. Gradually she relaxed, breathed more easily, tried to smile. ‘It’s even worse than I thought,’ she said, ‘much worse. Mummy said it was like a bad curse pain. She must have forgotten.’
Half an hour later, no one had come near the cubicle. They could still hear the noise of bombing, ambulance bells ringing, shouting, crying. ‘For Christ’s sake go and find someone,’ yelled Florence at the height of one of her contractions. ‘I can’t stand this. You’re being bloody useless, Grace, absolutely bloody useless.’
Grace fled to confront the chaos; anything was better than sitting there helpless witnessing Florence’s pain.
And it was chaos; casualties had been brought in, some crying, moaning, yelling, others silent, still with shock, wrapped in blankets, staring ahead of them. One man, lying quite near her, seemed to have lost an arm and was groping with the other one obviously trying to find it; a small child clung to her mother, whose head lay in a pool of blood. Everyone was dusty, dirty; every nurse, every doctor was moving with determined grimness from stretcher to stretcher, cubicle to cubicle. Grace stared in a sort of terrified horror; nothing she had read or heard about the Blitz had prepared her for any of it.
It was only a further loud yell coming from Florence’s cubicle that galvanized her into action; she went up to the desk, timidly tapped the woman’s arm. ‘Please – so sorry – my friend—’
‘What? Oh, the baby. Yes, we could do with the cubicle. I’ll ring up again. We’ve got five up there already apparently, all in labour. Tell her to keep a bit quieter, could you? She’s making more fuss than this lot put together.’
‘Is there – is there anything she could have? For the pain,’ said Grace. ‘It’s quite bad.’
‘Look,’ said the woman, clearly trying to be patient. ‘When she gets up there they’ll see to her. Right now she’ll have to put up with it, I’m afraid. I’ll try and get a doctor to look at her.’
Slowly, unwillingly, Grace went back to Florence. She was lying on her back, her stomach arched again, her head rolling from side to side, moaning less loudly but more pitifully. After a bit she calmed again. ‘What did they say?’ she said.
‘They’re just coming,’ said Grace.
It was at least another hour before a young doctor put his head round the curtain. He grinned cheerfully at Grace.
‘How’s she doing? Sorry about the delay, we can’t even find a spare trolley. But they’re coming down for her now. Want me to have a look at her?’
‘Yes – yes please,’ said Grace.
She waited outside while he made his examination; there was a loud yell, she heard Florence say, ‘For God’s sake be careful.’
He came out grinning. ‘She’s fine. A good little brood mare. Got a way to go yet, though. Only about six fingers dilated. Try to get her to relax when the pains come. They’ll give her some thing up in the labour ward I’m sure. Oh Christ –’ He looked at a new stretcher being brought in, a woman screaming, the blanket that covered her drenched with blood, ‘I’ve got to go. Good luck.’
What seemed like a whole night but was actually only another half-hour passed; Florence alternately sweated and moaned and abused Grace, and between her pains clung to her, begged her not to go, told her she couldn’t manage without her. Grace was beginning to think she couldn’t stand it any longer when an orderly came down from the labour ward with a trolley.
‘Got someone ’ere, ’ave you? ’ope she can wait a bit, there’s dozens of ’em up there, yelling their ’eads off. Poor Sister doesn’t know which way to turn.’
Grace looked at him with some foreboding.
As they reached the lift, Florence suddenly yelled again. ‘God oh God,’ she said, ‘God, I can’t stand it.’
‘They all say that,’ said the orderly cheerfully.
They got in the lift. Florence yelled again, very loudly, and her face distorted hideously; Grace looked at her anxiously. ‘The – the doctor said you should try and relax. When the pains come,’ she said.
‘I’ll give him bloody relax,’ yelled Florence. ‘Oh God, oh God –’ She suddenly tensed; she appeared to be straining violently, screaming at the same time.
‘Crikey,’ said the orderly, ‘she’s bearing down. Crikey. Better get a move on.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she’s pushing the baby out. Let me look, love – yeah, she is, oh blimey. Here, come on, ’elp me get this thing out of the lift. Come on, run, it’s just down ’ere.’
Florence gripped Grace’s hand. ‘They’ve got to help me,’ she said, her eyes staring wildly, ‘they’ve got to, it’s terrible, I –’ And then she contorted again, heaved, groaned, a strange primitive groan.
‘Come on,’ said the orderly, ‘’ang on, love, ’ere we are now. Sister, she’s bearing down. Baby’s crownin’.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Sister severely, ‘we don’t have a single delivery bed.
You’ll just have to wait,’ she said to Florence, ‘while I find somewhere. Pant. Pant hard. They’re all making a terrible fuss tonight,’ she added to the orderly. ‘No self-control at all.’
‘I’ll give you bloody pants,’ said Florence, ‘and bloody self-control. Just give me something. They said gas and air, they said – oh God.’
And then there was a huge wail, a wild cry, and she heaved endlessly, violently.
‘Good girl,’ said Sister, suddenly more sympathetic, galvanized finally into action, ‘good girl. Let’s have a look. Yes, I can see baby’s head now. You,’ she said to Grace, ‘you hold her hand, try to calm her down. Come along, dear, deep breaths, wait, wait, pant, yes, like a dog. Good, good, now push, come along, push hard, I know it hurts, but never mind, just push, and – there! Baby’s head. And – wait and again and – push, come on, last time – and there you are, a lovely little girl. Well done, well done.’
And Grace, looking fearfully at the bloody mess between Florence’s legs as she lay on the trolley in the darkened corridor, saw a tiny, perfect creature lying there, a huge pulsating cord attached to its tummy button, and for the rest of her life, when she heard the word miracle, she remembered that moment in all its blood and gore and pain and wonder. And as she watched, in awe and disbelief, she felt Florence’s hand slide into hers, and heard Florence’s voice say, ‘Oh Grace, thank you, thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.’ She spent the rest of the night sleeping on a camp bed in that same corridor. Florence and her small daughter were taken away, cleaned up, pronounced as having done very well and being quite perfect in their respective ways, and put to bed in an enormous ward.
Grace was allowed to visit them once; Florence was sitting up, holding the baby in her arms, smiling radiantly. ‘I’m going to call her Imogen,’ she said, ‘Imogen Grace. Do you think that’s nice?’
Forbidden Places Page 26