Return to Jarrow

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  He left to the eerie sound of the air-raid siren, the first since their return from Tyneside. Tom lay on the bed and held her.

  ‘You’re not moving anywhere for any sirens.’ He kissed her. ‘The three of us’ll stay together or go together.’

  Catherine buried her face in his chest.

  The raid was a false alarm and the all-clear sounded late that night. By then she was past sleeping. Sometime in the early hours, she felt moisture trickle between her legs. For a moment she thought she had wet herself, then worried it might be blood. She lay, not daring to move, wishing for the morning to come.

  When Tom woke he berated her. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ He went rushing off for the doctor again.

  This time there was no cheery banter.

  ‘I’m afraid your waters have broken, Mrs Cookson.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ she asked in bewilderment.

  ‘It means your labour has started.’

  Catherine let out a whimper. ‘But it can’t survive at six months, can it? It’s not a proper baby.’

  ‘If we can get you to hospital, it might be possible to delay the birth. But I’m sorry to say the chances aren’t good. The heartbeat is very weak.’

  Tom said very calmly, ‘Wouldn’t it be better if she stays still in her own bed? If there was a midwife to help me, I could look after her.’

  The doctor eyed him in surprise. Eventually he nodded.

  ‘It’s as good a plan as any - if you’re not squeamish, Mr Cookson.’

  ‘She’s my wife,’ Tom said proudly. ‘I’d do anything for her.’

  Catherine was too overcome to speak, humbled by Tom’s devotion and grateful at not having the trauma of being uprooted to a lonely hospital bed.

  Later in the day, Mrs Hume arrived to oversee the birth. She was a widow who liked to talk about her son at sea, dodging the hazards in the Atlantic convoys. Her hearty chatter grated on Catherine’s nerves. Tom sensed this and kept the woman at bay in the sitting room, supplied with endless cups of tea.

  ‘Nothing much we can do until the baby decides to come,’ she said, launching into a description of a long arduous birth she had attended the previous week.

  By the end of the day, the situation had not changed and Tom sent her home. For a week, Catherine lay in a twilight world, waiting. Mrs Hume and Tom took it in turns to be at the flat, Catherine insisting that he went back to work. She could see by the tired creases around his eyes and his tense mouth that he was finding their state of limbo unbearable. At least his lessons would keep his mind distracted for a short while.

  On the eighth day, Mrs Hume lost patience.

  ‘There’s not a flicker of life, Mrs Cookson. It’s time we got on with getting it out.’

  Distraught and ill as she felt, Catherine did not believe her baby was dead.

  ‘I can feel it,’ she said in distress.

  ‘But you’ve said there’s been no movement for days.’ Mrs Hume was blunt. ‘You’ll make yourself really sick if you don’t expel that baby.’

  When Tom came home, Catherine heard her say, ‘I’ll not have your wife’s death on my hands.’

  After that, Mrs Hume set to work, giving her a draught of bitter liquid to drink and pummelling Catherine’s womb to hasten the labour. Late that night, exhausted and sore, Catherine felt the first real pangs of pain seize her body. She cried out and Tom came running into the room.

  ‘I think it’s coming. Help me, Tom. I’m scared.’

  He wiped her face and neck with a damp cloth and spoke to her soothingly. She had nothing to fear; he’d talked it over a dozen times with the midwife and knew what to do.

  She gripped his hand when the next labour pain swept through her body. It was like an iron fist squeezing her insides and she stifled a yell.

  ‘Scream if you want to, Kitty,’ Tom ordered.

  ‘I - don’t - want - to - wake - that woman,’ she panted.

  ‘She’ll not come near you,’ Tom said with feeling. ‘You can wake the whole bloody street - it doesn’t matter a bit.’

  Catherine writhed and groaned through the early hours of the morning. She prayed for it all to be over, prayed that she would not have to look at the creature that was taking so long to leave her womb. It would be half formed, a freak of nature, a lumpen mass of flesh. Tom would have to wrap it up quickly and take it away. It was the one useful task the garrulous Mrs Hume could have done for them. But she was still snoring on their sofa.

  Suddenly, Catherine felt a rushing sensation between her legs, like letting go on a slide. It couldn’t be stopped.

  ‘This is it,’ she whispered weakly.

  Tom held her hand tight. ‘Push, Kitty!’

  All at once, the baby was slipping out of her. Tom let go of her to catch it. She felt instant relief as the strange pressure subsided. Her whole body throbbed and shook. She squeezed her eyes shut. It was over. She knew without looking the baby was dead. Sometime in the dark hours she had felt it fade away.

  ‘Look, Kitty,’ Tom said in a hushed voice. ‘You were right. He’s a boy.’

  Catherine’s heart lurched. She could not look. He was perverse to make her. But the next moment, he was thrusting something into her arms.

  ‘Don’t be frightened - look at him,’ Tom said, his voice full of wonder. ‘Our baby son.’

  Catherine opened her eyes. A tiny slippery figure, still covered in mucus and blood, lay nestled between them. She gasped in surprise. He was perfectly formed - a miniature version of Tom, with his lean head and long feet and expressive hands. Tentatively she touched him, wondering at his neat fingers, his little bud of a mouth. He lay with his eyes closed as if peacefully sleeping, his body still warm.

  ‘He’s beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I never thought . . .’

  She heard a strange noise, half yelp, half groan. Looking up, she saw the tears coursing down Tom’s harrowed face. The sight of it tore at her heart. In that instant, Catherine realised the enormity of what they had lost. Their son. A real flesh-and-blood person, not the figment of their guessing games. She gazed at the sweet baby in her arms and felt winded by the first violent pain of grief. Not only had he died, but all the years of life ahead of him that they should have shared together were gone too. She hugged him close, not wanting to ever let go.

  Just then, Mrs Hume appeared at the door blinking sleepily. She looked confused at the sight of Catherine cradling the baby as if it lived. But Tom’s sobbing told the truth.

  ‘Poor things, let me take it away,’ she said, bustling in quickly.

  Catherine faced her in defiance. For that brief moment she was a mother.

  ‘He’s a boy, Mrs Hume,’ she said proudly. ‘And we’ve called him David.’

  Chapter 47

  Catherine refused to let the midwife take her baby away until the priest had been. She wrapped David in her bed shawl and cradled his cooling body. The rancid smell of the afterbirth burning on the sitting-room fire made her want to vomit. Tom, unshaven and bleary-eyed, came back with Father Shay, the elderly priest at St Michael’s.

  He was kind and concerned, saying a prayer over Catherine and her lifeless son. Mrs Hume hovered in the doorway, sighing in disapproval and muttering about it being unnatural to make such a fuss over a stillborn.

  ‘I want him christened, Father,’ Catherine croaked. ‘He must go to Heaven.’

  The priest looked sorrowful and shook his head.

  ‘I can’t christen a child that’s never lived.’

  Catherine stared at him in confusion. ‘But he did ‘ She could not find the words to describe how very real her son had been. He had grown and moved and lived inside her.

  ‘If it had lived a few hours . . .’ He spread his hands in apology.

  Tom said very quietly, ‘Will h
e be allowed a Christian burial?’

  Father Shay looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, but if he’s not christened he can’t be buried in sacred ground.’

  Tom looked at Catherine in distress. She gripped David in desperation.

  ‘Where then?’ she demanded. ‘What will they do with him?’

  At that moment, Mrs Hume bustled past the embarrassed priest.

  ‘You mustn’t upset yourself over such things,’ she said, reaching for the bundle in Catherine’s arms. ‘It’s just not meant to be.’ Swiftly she pulled the dead baby away and carried it from the room.

  Tom followed her out. The priest turned to go.

  ‘Tell me!’ Catherine cried hoarsely. ‘Where will she take him?’

  ‘The body will be put in a common grave,’ Father Shay said.

  ‘Like a heathen,’ Catherine said, beginning to shake. ‘What about his soul? Where will that go? Stuck in Purgatory for ever and ever!’

  ‘You mustn’t dwell on it, Mrs Cookson,’ he said. ‘God takes care of his own.’

  She struggled to sit up. ‘But he’s not God’s - he hasn’t been christened. If the Church thinks he never existed, then he doesn’t have a soul. That’s what you think, isn’t it? My baby has no soul!’

  Alarmed, the priest said, ‘You must accept God’s will.’ He hurried from the room.

  Tom came back to find Catherine clinging to the bed covers, trembling and sobbing. He went to her and held her tight. For minutes they hugged and wept, beyond speech. Finally, Tom pulled away.

  ‘Mrs Hume said you must wash and then rest. She’ll call back later to see you.’

  Catherine looked at him, wondering how he could talk about such mundane things as washing and sleeping. She did not care if she never washed again.

  ‘Did you kiss him?’ she asked abruptly.

  Tom looked haggard. He shook his head.

  Catherine gulped. ‘Neither did I. We didn’t kiss him. That woman took him so quickly.’ Tears began to stream down her face once more. ‘I never got to kiss him goodbye!’

  ***

  Catherine remembered little of the following days. They were a fog of pain. She was physically exhausted and mentally in torment. In the long sleepless nights, she searched around for someone or something to blame for her son’s death.

  The naval doctor had weakened her and damaged the baby with his brutal emetic. The wild-goose chase to Tyneside had brought on the premature labour. Kate was to blame. If her mother hadn’t caught a cold, if she hadn’t provoked a jealous neighbour with her drinking, if she had been a more responsible mother . . .

  Mrs Hume was a terrible midwife, doing nothing until it was too late, then punching her insides and cutting off the life-breath of her struggling son. Even Tom did not escape her fevered attempt to find a scapegoat. He should have listened to the doctor who wanted to send her to hospital. Perhaps there might have been a chance of saving David there. Tom should have insisted.

  Round and round she argued in her head. But every time she came back to the one guilty thought. She, more than anyone, had killed her baby. If she had believed the first doctor that she was pregnant she would have taken more care. It was she who took the emetic - eagerly. She was the one who had stubbornly insisted on trekking up to Jarrow and it was she who did not want to go into hospital to save her child.

  But Catherine had not thought of him as a child then. She had had no conception of what she carried in her womb. Pregnancy and birth had been shrouded in terrible secrecy; her mind swaddled in ignorance. All she knew from Kate was that pregnancy was shameful and birth was torture.

  Her eyes had been opened too late. Nothing had prepared her for the startling joy of holding a fully formed human being in her arms. Nobody had told her what a miracle it was. She had been utterly surprised by the fierce, possessive love that had welled up inside at the sight and touch of her baby son.

  David. David. David.

  Catherine grew to believe she was not worthy of such a gift. If she had been a better person it would not have happened. She was wicked and sinful. Yet, even as she punished herself for the stillbirth, she turned her back on the Church and its judgement.

  Even when she was well enough to leave the flat and walk short distances, she avoided confession and Mass. She would not answer the door in case it was the priest. She cut herself off from the old comforting prayers to Our Lady.

  ‘Why should her son be born alive and not mine?’ she railed at Tom. ‘What would have happened if Jesus had been stillborn?’

  He looked at her, shocked. But she could not stop.

  ‘Where would his soul have gone?’ she demanded. ‘Let the priests answer that!’

  Tom could not answer her torrent of questions either. He moved around the flat, subdued and wary of her. It seemed to Catherine he could not get away quick enough in the mornings and stayed long hours at school.

  She began to resent his work and the way he had slipped back into it as if nothing had happened. He had dozens of boys to call his own - he did not need their David. He thought bringing her tea and biscuits in bed before he left was all the comfort she needed. She wanted to talk about their baby, but he could not bring himself to mention his name. She needed him there to protect her from callers and neighbours, but he was never there when they came.

  Catherine dreaded going out for fear of seeing women pushing prams. She froze at the sight of babies bundled up in shawls and woollen bonnets. She held her breath and hurried past shop windows displaying baby clothes and booties. Nausea engulfed her when she saw a heavily pregnant woman lumbering across the street.

  Tom watched her in mounting concern, wretched that he could not comfort her. Anything he suggested she dismissed with hurtful looks.

  ‘Why don’t you go to the library today?’

  ‘I can’t read any more - it gives me a headache.’

  ‘A walk in the park, then?’

  ‘I hate the park. It’s full of mothers with prams.’

  ‘Your writing. That’s something you could do here in the flat.’

  ‘I can’t write! What could I possibly want to write about now?’

  Catherine looked at him in misery. How could she explain that the thought of picking up a pencil again made her physically sick? The last thing she had been working on was a story for David. It was half written. If she opened the exercise book, it would be lying there waiting for a happy ending.

  Tom stopped making suggestions. By the Christmas holidays, he was hardly speaking at all. They were invited to Essex to stay with his family. His mother had written to say she was sorry about the ‘miscarriage’. Kate had also asked them north for Christmas, but Catherine could not face going back there. It would remind her too painfully of the dreadful November journey, and Kate would be tearful and morose about her lost grandchild. She would rather go somewhere that held no reminders of when she was pregnant, so agreed on Essex.

  Catherine avoided all the end-of-term activities: the Christmas play, the carol service, the staff party. Tom’s look was reproachful but she was incapable of putting on a brave face. One choir boy singing about angels or one merry teacher talking about their children and she would burst into tears. Tom went on his own and did not tell her about them on his return.

  On Christmas Eve, they packed a small suitcase and a bag of presents and set off for Grays in Essex. London was chaotic with people on leave trying to catch trains and evacuees returning home for the brief holiday. Slowly they made their way down the Thames towards the massive docks at Tilbury. The river was crowded with shipping, the low-lying riverside etched with chalk quarries and industry. There was a bustle about it that reminded Catherine of Tyneside, though the accents made her think she was in a different country.

  Christmas in the Cooksons’ small terraced house passed quickly enough and Tom
’s mother did her best to make Catherine feel one of the family. Catherine stood in the cramped kitchen peeling potatoes, half listening to the chatter of Tom’s sisters, both of whom were courting. One brother was away in the navy - Egypt, they thought. The youngest was out kicking a ball in the wet back lane.

  Tom kept peering in anxiously to see if she was all right. Catherine relaxed and ate more than she had in weeks, grateful for their friendly warmth. The small glass of sherry, specially hoarded for the occasion, made her light-headed and comfortably detached. After lunch she went to lie down while Tom went for a walk with his sisters.

  When Catherine got up she could hear voices and laughter downstairs. His mother had mentioned some cousins were calling for tea to see them. She walked in and was halfway across the room to Tom when she stopped.

  A dark-haired young woman was sitting by the fire, joggling a baby on her knee. The baby was gazing about with large eyes, a fist in his mouth, dribbling and making little noises. Catherine was transfixed.

  ‘This is cousin Betty,’ Tom’s mother said, ‘and little Winston. Come and sit down, Kitty.’

  The young cousin smiled. The only empty seat was next to her. Catherine looked at Tom in panic. He smiled at her tensely. She went and sat down, shrinking into her seat, heart pounding. The room was overpoweringly stuffy, her palms sweaty.

  The conversation resumed. It was all about baby Winston, what a good appetite he had and how he was nearly sitting up by himself. One of the sisters offered Catherine a cup of tea. She nodded, feeling faint.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to have a hold of the baby first?’ the senior Mrs Cookson asked.

  Catherine gawped. She could not mean it. But Tom’s mother was smiling at her in encouragement and nodding.

  ‘Course you can,’ Betty said, holding the baby out to her. Winston sensed the handing over and began to grizzle. Betty joggled him up and down and waited for Catherine to take him.

  She sat paralysed. The thought of touching the child made bile flood her throat. She swallowed and tried to speak. Everyone was looking at her now, willing her to hold the baby. What did they think? That nursing someone else’s baby boy would make up for the absence of her own?