My Mam Shirley

by Julie Shaw

  Shirley flinched to hear her mam talking like that. She really didn’t think her Keith was that sort of man, but what if her mam was right? What if he was looking around? Maybe she had been letting herself go a bit lately – she’d had so much else on her mind, after all. Was that why he always wanted to be out of the house?

  Perhaps she needed to do what her mam suggested.

  ‘Run me a bath, love, while you’re in there,’ she shouted into the tiny bathroom where Keith was shaving at the sink, the following Friday evening. ‘I’m going to get myself ready and come with you for a change. It’s ages since I’ve been out for a drink. Or seen any of our friends, for that matter. And I’m sick of staring at these four walls while you go out gallivanting,’ she finished

  Keith stepped out onto the landing and stared at her, the bottom half of his face covered in soap. ‘What are you frigging on about?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said. ‘You’re out all the time, Keith, and if I want to go out as well then I bloody will!’

  His expression was so shocked by this that it only served to fuel her anger. ‘Have you got someone else on the go already, is that it? You have, haven’t you? That’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s because I’m getting fat again, isn’t it?’ She couldn’t stop herself then – she started pummelling at him, raining blows against his chest.

  Keith grabbed a towel and tried to wipe it across his chin while defending himself from her blows at the same time. He then grabbed her arms and pulled her firmly towards his chest. ‘Don’t be stupid, you daft mare. You sound just like your frigging mother! What on earth put an idea like that in your head?’

  Shirley only sobbed harder. It was almost as if her mam was there with her. ‘You’re never in the house, Keith! And you won’t ever talk about the baby with me – ever! And you’ve stopped taking me out. What am I supposed to think?’

  Keith dropped his arms, his expression shocked. And it made her stop hitting him. It was as if one of her physical blows had connected, even though it hadn’t. ‘Don’t say that, Shirley,’ he said quietly. ‘Please don’t say that. You have no idea, do you?’

  Shirley caught her breath then, suddenly afraid of what she might hear. What was he talking about? ‘Come on then,’ she said, gathering herself. ‘Enlighten me then, Keith. You might as well tell me now and get it over with.’

  Keith’s head snapped up, his eyes boring into her face. But it was several seconds before he spoke. ‘You think it’s been easy for me, all this, do you?’ he said finally, still holding her. ‘Well, it hasn’t. You think I don’t care that my son was born dead and buried within 12 hours? A son I wasn’t even allowed to see? My son – a kid I watched you carry for me for nine months, and then … nothing. And then seeing you there, not knowing – knowing I’d have to try and explain to you. Tell you things I didn’t want to know and didn’t want to tell you.’ He took a breath and wiped the towel over his face again before continuing. ‘Now, I’m not saying it isn’t right, Shirley, because it is. Of course it is. But let’s be honest, it’s been hard for me as well. And I don’t have a mam to run to, do I? My job’s to shut up and get on with it – that’s what everyone’s been saying, Shirley. Be strong. Get her to buck up – act like it’s all going to be okay this time. Course they do! I’m a man, after all, aren’t I? Well you know what?’ he said. ‘Never again. That’s what I’ve been thinking, if I’m honest. I can’t cope with it. I’m not sure I can go through it again, Shirley. Seeing what it’s put you through. I just can’t. It’s tearing me up inside. And I’m sorry if that makes me a prat. It’s just the way it is.’

  Shirley stared at her husband, stunned, not knowing what to think, much less what to say. She sat down on the top step of the stairwell and dropped her head into her hands. Her mam had been wrong. So wrong. Why hadn’t she seen that? All men were not the same. How had she been blind to that, too? How had she not given Keith a second thought during her tragedy – their tragedy? She felt terrible even thinking it. How had she not given a thought to how awful it must have been for him as well? Worse, in some ways – because she’d slept through it, drugged up, oblivious. While poor Keith, who, as well as worrying about the baby, must have been terrified about what might happen to her, as well. Who’d had to live through it, hear the news, know he had to face her when she woke, knowing that her heart would be broken.

  He was right. It had all been about her, all the time. And there’d been no one for him, no one. He’d just had to put on a brave face. When, in fact, he wasn’t feeling brave at all.

  ‘I’m sorry, Keith,’ she whispered as he came and sat down beside her. ‘I … I just … well, I just thought you didn’t really care.’

  Keith put his arm around her. ‘It’s all right, love. I know it was worse for you. I just didn’t know how to deal with it – I still don’t. I really don’t. I’m not good with letting it all out, Shirl – you know that. I never have been. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. Because I do.’

  Shirley hugged him tight. She no longer cared about going tit for tat with this man. Her mam was wrong.

  ‘Go on, Keith,’ she sniffed. ‘Go get ready and go for a few pints. You need them. I’m fine. I think I’ll get an early night instead.’

  Keith kissed the top of her head. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I’m not really in the mood now. How about we have a night in, just the two of us?’ He laughed softly. ‘No, sorry – just the three of us,’ he corrected. ‘Fish and chips. Feet up. Watch the telly. How about doing that instead?’

  Shirley nodded. That would do her fine. Well, she thought, feeling the ‘morning’ sickness making its presence felt yet again, apart from the fish.

  But their good fortune wasn’t to last. One week after their first wedding anniversary, on 17 March, Shirley woke up from a nap feeling something horribly familiar clenching in her stomach and a warm stickiness that took her straight back to the events of the previous December. By the end of the night, while Keith sat in the pub with his brother, oblivious, she’d clutched her tummy and said goodbye to her second baby, wondering as she wept what she or Keith could have possibly done to deserve such wretchedness.

  Chapter 20

  20 April 1964

  Monday’s child is fair of face,

  Tuesday’s child is full of grace,

  Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

  Thursday’s child has far to go,

  Friday’s child is loving and giving,

  Saturday’s child must work for a living,

  But the child that’s born on the Sabbath day,

  Is fair and wise and good and gay.

  Just over a month after her and Keith’s second wedding anniversary, Shirley was being carted off to the labour ward at St Luke’s Hospital. Doctor Hardaker had insisted that this time there would be no mistakes. ‘The minute you feel that first pain, Shirley,’ he told her at her last appointment, ‘you send someone to ring for an ambulance as quick as you can.’ He’d taken her hand to reassure her then. ‘I promise, love,’ he said, ‘it’s going to be third time lucky, you wait and see.’

  Shirley hadn’t been convinced she’d be lucky ever again. Yes, she’d been lucky in love, but was she ever going to become a mother? She really didn’t dare hope. All those months carrying another infant had brought back such painful memories; it had almost felt like she had held her breath for the entire pregnancy. It was so hard to shoo away the images lodged in her brain – of all the blood, the terrible pain, the being put to sleep and waking up to find her longed-for child wasn’t with her, of the nurse coming in and telling her things she couldn’t bear to hear, of being told her tiny baby had been ‘disposed of’.

  ‘Are you sure there’s no chance of them tablets still being in my system this time?’ She’d asked Dr Hardaker that, again and again. There’d been so much talk about the sickness tablets since she’d lost her son, and it was talk she found difficult to listen to. But that hadn’t stopped her taking it in. Ever sinc
e her miscarriage the previous year she had been convinced that the same tablets that had meant her first baby had been born deformed had also been responsible for her losing her second. Who knew what they’d done to her? Who knew what they’d damaged? And though no one had ever admitted it in public, Dr Hardaker had even hinted at it himself. ‘Yes,’ he’d admitted, after she’d had her miscarriage, ‘until we know all the facts about thalidomide I can’t rule out that they might have played a part in what happened.’

  And it was too late for her in any case, so she could only try to look forward. She had suffered her morning sickness with stoicism. And today, with only the last hurdle to jump, remembering his confidence was reassuring. ‘There’s nothing in your system, Shirley, I promise,’ he’d said, in answer to her question, every time. ‘You’ve nothing to be afraid of. And you’ve been fit and healthy throughout this pregnancy, so please don’t worry yourself.’

  But how could she not worry? It wasn’t just her, either. Keith had too – he’d been getting more and more distant again. The rounder she had become, the more he’d withdrawn from her – and even her mam was like a nervous wreck.

  All the things that had been bought for the much longed-for first baby had now been given away. Shirley had been adamant that they didn’t go to family, either, for fear that they might bring bad luck. And she’d stuck to it, only being persuaded to change her mind when Keith’s Malcolm and his wife Valerie had had their baby Steven. ‘Go on, Shirl,’ Annie had said to her, ‘let them have them if you’re getting rid of them. You know how strapped for cash they are – they’d be so grateful for a cot and pram.’

  And they had been, and though Valerie clearly had some reservations, they weren’t about superstition – they were about how Shirley might feel about it when she was still without a baby of her own.

  ‘You sure about this, love?’ Valerie had asked when Keith and Raymond had carried them from the car as they dropped them off for her.

  ‘Course I am,’ Shirley had told her. ‘It’s good to keep them in the family.’ But it didn’t stop her worrying that she might have jinxed them in some way. How could she not feel like that, given what had happened to her?

  But then she’d fallen pregnant for a third time and it was as if everyone around her breathed a sigh of relief. And then, almost as soon as they’d done that, they all started holding their breath all over again. And however much everyone told her it would be all right this time, she knew that privately everyone was as terrified as she and Keith were – not daring to count any chickens until they’d well and truly hatched.

  All bar Keith’s Margaret, who proved the best tonic imaginable. As Shirley’s date drew near, she and Bob even came across from Preston, and, in honour of their visit, despite Shirley being so heavily pregnant, she was adamant that there was no question of them sleeping downstairs. They’d have the double bed upstairs, Shirley insisted, while she and Keith made the best of it down in the living room, because, in truth, she told Margaret, she could no longer get comfortable in bed anyway. She was just so grateful for Margaret’s calm, reassuring presence. Of all the loved ones around her, she knew Margaret understood how she felt.

  Margaret’s refusal to fuss was like a breath of fresh air. ‘She’s bleeding pregnant – not an invalid!’ she would point out to anyone who dared to try step in and tell Shirley she shouldn’t be doing this or that, or – the thing she hated most – treated her like a porcelain doll. She even managed to shut up Shirley’s mam – the worst culprit – something Shirley had barely ever seen anyone do before, which only served to raise Margaret further in her eyes.

  Her mam had called round to see if they needed anything from the shop, and when she saw Shirley wringing out Keith’s shirt in the sink, she went mad.

  ‘Bloody leave that for him to do when he gets home!’ she had snapped. ‘Who’s he think he is, having you sort his dirty laundry, you in your state!’ She then tried to get between Shirley and the sink, and bustle her across the room to sit down.

  Margaret, who’d been sitting on the couch sewing a hem, stood straight up.

  ‘Mary, love,’ she said mildly, ‘I know you’re Shirley’s mother, but you’re really not doing her any favours keeping her from her jobs. Our Keith’s at work all day, and he’s not going to want to come home to a sinkful, is he? Honestly, Mary, just think – they have it easy these days, don’t they? Remember when we had kids? None of them pain-killing injections and stuff back then, was there? None of all that “sit down and rest” malarkey, was there? And them poor bloody Indian women just squat down in the woods, don’t they? Have their babies then get straight on with their work. No, love,’ she said, while Shirley stood there, open-mouthed, ‘leave her be. She needs to get used to being busy now, being run off her feet.’ She grinned at Shirley. ‘Now she’s going to be a mum, like you and me.’

  Mary had gaped at Margaret, and Shirley could see the point had been made. It also confirmed her instinct that it was Margaret she needed at her side when the day came.

  So when the pains started rippling through her at half past six that morning, she left Keith snoring on the carpet and crept upstairs.

  ‘Margaret,’ she whispered urgently as she shook her sister-in-law awake. ‘I think the baby’s on its way.’

  Margaret sat up immediately, as if she’d only been in the lightest of sleeps. ‘Are you sure, love?’ she said. ‘Are you having labour pains?’

  Shirley had never seen Margaret looking anything less than perfect, and looking at her now – devoid of make-up and her hair looking like a scarecrow’s – brought a smile to her face, despite the pain. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, ‘I’ve been having them for a couple of hours now – least, I think so – but I’m scared, Margaret. I don’t know if I dare go to the hospital. Not after last time. I think I’d rather have it here.’

  Margaret tutted as she threw the covers back and swung her legs out of the bed. ‘Don’t be silly, love,’ she whispered briskly. ‘You go back downstairs while I get dressed. Is our Keith awake?’

  Shirley shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘not yet.’

  ‘Well, it’s time he was then,’ Margaret said, ‘so get yourself back downstairs and have him get the kettle on while I get dressed, so we can have a cup of tea at least before we call the ambulance.’

  Shirley did as she was told, wincing as another contraction gripped her in the kitchen, wondering whether she should send for her mam. She decided not to; not yet, at any rate – she didn’t want her mam’s usual fuss and flap today. She just wanted to stay calm.

  Keith, on the other hand, didn’t have a calm bone in his body. In fact, Margaret had to threaten to slap him if he didn’t sit still and shut up.

  ‘But we need to call the ambulance!’ he kept insisting. ‘I need to go and call for it!’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Margaret kept answering. ‘It’s too soon. You call it now and all poor Shirl will end up doing is hanging around the bleeding hospital for hours on end.’

  ‘So I’ll go and call the ambulance and tell them to leave it for half an hour, then!’

  ‘Keith!’ Margaret snapped. ‘It’s a bleeding ambulance! Not a taxi cab. You phone them and they come. There and then. Soon as possible. You don’t bleeding book them in advance!’ She trained steely eyes on his. ‘Now, if you can’t do anything helpful, then go for a pissing walk or something, will you?’

  With the pains worsening with every cycle, Shirley wished Keith would get the frigging ambulance, not least because the offer of a nice cup of tea didn’t even seem to include her. ‘Trust me, Shirley,’ Margaret said, ‘you can’t have anything to eat or drink yet. Just in case they have to knock you out or something.’

  ‘What, anything?’ Shirley squawked. ‘Not even a drink of water?’

  Margaret shook her head. ‘Sorry, love. Not even water. My Bob’s mate’s an ambulance man, so I know that for a fact.’

  There was nothing for it, then, but to pace, gripping various pieces of furniture a
s and when required, all the while groan-ing in agony and waiting until Keith and her guests had all finished their morning cuppa. By now, Bob had joined them downstairs, as well, and, almost as if in solidarity, he was stumbling about like she was: since they’d last visited, his eyesight had progressively worsened, and now he couldn’t see very well at all.

  Not that Margaret was prepared to give him any quarter. ‘Jesus Christ, Keith!’ she said, watching her husband stumbling around, trying to find a seat, ‘Have you seen these two? Now I know what they mean when they say it’s like the blind leading the blind!’

  She then burst out into great peals of laughter. And Shirley smiled, despite the pain. She was definitely the right person to have around.

  But now she was at the hospital, the pains coming thick and fast, the fear of what was to come eclipsed everything. She’d gone on her own – the ambulance men insisting that there wasn’t room for anyone else – and now that she was being transferred to the delivery suite, she didn’t think she’d ever felt so alone. Not even her mam – who all of a sudden she wanted more than anything – would be allowed in to help and hold her hand.

  And worse than anything was that Sister Harris, the midwife, kept shouting at her. Yes, she added ‘love’ on the end of each utterance, but if she thought that made it better she was wrong. ‘Push, love! You have to push, love! You can do much better than that, love!’ But she couldn’t. She was pushing so hard that her eyes were almost popping out.