The Midwives of Raglan Road

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘No thanks, Eddie. Where’s Joan tonight, anyway?’

  ‘She’s not keen on jazz so she’s stayed in to get her hair done.’

  Eddie and Joan were childhood sweethearts. They’d been engaged at eighteen and after seven long years they were still saving hard from his job at the brass foundry and hers behind the counter at Pickard’s butcher’s until they could afford to be married. ‘Steady Eddie’ was what Gladys called him, whereas debonair Dan was dubbed the black sheep of the family – still single at twenty-eight and regularly drinking away his week’s wages in the Green Cross or chucking his money down the drain at the greyhound track.

  ‘I’m not too keen on this new type of music either,’ Eddie confessed.

  ‘No? I like it,’ Hazel said, tapping her fingers on the table. The rhythms were earthy and carried you along, and there was a kind of underworld glamour to it that seemed to ride roughshod over the narrow rules she’d grown up with.

  Two songs later, her view was blocked when someone came between her and the stage. ‘Is anyone sitting here?’ a man asked.

  In the glare of the footlights, Hazel couldn’t make out the tall figure hovering nearby but she recognized the voice of John Moxon, one of Dan’s newer friends and a recent neighbour on Raglan Road. Guessing that Gladys would stay on the dance floor until the band stopped for a break, she pulled back the vacant chair. ‘No, help yourself.’

  John put down his beer and sat next to her. For a moment she was blinded by the glare. ‘You’re not dancing,’ he commented.

  ‘No. It’s a tight squeeze out there.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Letting the conversation drift, he seemed happy to soak up the atmosphere.

  Hazel was aware of him relaxing in his seat beside her. John carried himself quietly as if reluctant to draw attention despite having a past that was a little out of the ordinary. For a start, he hadn’t lived in the town all his life. He’d been born in a small village in the north of the county and only came to Raglan Road when he’d married Myra Pennington from the fish and chip shop. They’d moved into a house two doors down from her parents and Myra was currently pregnant with their first child. Secondly – and this was what came to the forefront of Hazel’s mind – John Moxon had played cricket for Yorkshire.

  ‘He was a wizard with the bat,’ Dan had boasted to everyone soon after he’d got talking with John at the Green Cross. ‘It was a few years back, mind you – before he had his accident. His name came up in the Yorkshire Post every week, scoring a century against Worcestershire, playing in a winning innings against Surrey at Lord’s. You wouldn’t think to look at him now, but he was a leading light in the cricketing world, was John Moxon.’

  Never having had the slightest interest in cricket, the name had meant nothing to Hazel, but now, when she called to mind that her old school friend Myra was soon due to give birth, she deftly took charge of the conversation. ‘Say hello to your wife from me,’ she began. ‘I’m Hazel Price. Myra and I went around together a few years back.’

  John nodded, glanced sideways at Hazel then back at the stage.

  ‘You might not remember me, by the way. I’ve been in London, training as a midwife.’

  This time John paid more attention. He leaned over to shake her hand. ‘John Moxon. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Hazel scored top marks in her class,’ Eddie chipped in, giving her a small nudge of encouragement. ‘And she only lives a few yards down the road from you at number 18 – nice and handy for Myra when the time comes.’

  Hazel squirmed in her seat at the brazenness of their joint approach. But this was what you had to do to get on in life.

  ‘Did she now?’ John held Hazel’s gaze with his light brown eyes. There was a slight curl to his lips and a timbre to his voice suggesting amusement.

  At her expense? Hazel wondered. Was he laughing at her?

  Just then Dan broke away from his dancing partner and made a beeline towards the table. He clapped John on the back then launched into a loud conversation about the upcoming match at Headingley and Yorkshire’s current position in the County Championship table. Before long he was inviting John to the bar for a refill of his pint glass.

  ‘I’ll make sure to let Myra know you’re back,’ John assured Hazel before Dan led him off. ‘But don’t get your hopes up over the question of a midwife. I think her mother’s already made arrangements for that side of things.’

  ‘Rightio, that’s fair enough.’ Hazel tried to conceal her disappointment by smiling and turning her head towards the stage.

  ‘Good for you, anyway,’ Eddie told her as the music changed to a faster, more upbeat number. ‘It might not come easily but you have to learn to blow your own trumpet if you want to get ahead.’

  ‘I know,’ Hazel said with a sigh. Was it the music that had made her pulse race, or embarrassment at being turned down, or the way John Moxon’s eyes had fixed on her? Something had quickened her heartbeat and brought a flush to her cheeks – that much was certain.

  Two songs later, when the singer moved away from the microphone and the musicians put down their instruments, a breathless Gladys came back to the table. ‘Fetch Hazel and me a drink, Eddie, there’s a good lad,’ she said as she sank into her seat. ‘Dan’s up there at the bar – he’ll pay if you ask him nicely.’

  ‘I can’t make out why Eddie lets you boss him around,’ Hazel observed as he went off meekly.

  ‘Mum trained him well.’ Gladys giggled. ‘Dan was a tearaway from the start. She’d already given up on him when Eddie came along. Lord, I’m hot!’

  ‘Here.’ Hazel picked up the cardboard drinks list and suggested Gladys use it as a fan.

  ‘Ta – that’s better.’ Still smiling, Gladys picked out John Moxon standing head and shoulders above Eddie and Dan at the bar. ‘What do you make of our famous cricketer?’ she asked in a voice laden with innuendo.

  ‘He seemed decent enough,’ Hazel answered defensively.

  ‘Come on, Hazel – I saw you sweet-talking him and don’t pretend you didn’t.’

  The colour rose again in Hazel’s cheeks. ‘I never did! We were discussing Myra, if you must know.’

  ‘Trust you.’ The disappointed grimace on Gladys’s face was exaggerated. ‘You bump into the best-looking fellow for miles around – in a jazz club, in a smoke-filled cellar room listening to the best music you’ll ever hear – drums and saxophones and words that get under your skin without you realizing it – and all you find to talk about is his pregnant wife!’

  ‘Best-looking, maybe,’ Hazel agreed, ‘but married.’

  Gladys laughed then pointed to two new arrivals. ‘Look out – here comes trouble.’ And with that she turned to ask a stranger at the neighbouring table for a light for her cigarette.

  Through the smoke Hazel made out Sylvia, the youngest Drummond sister, on the arm of a man she didn’t recognize. Sylvia was seventeen – hardly old enough to be let loose, as Gladys put it. She was the only dark-haired member of the family – a throwback to her grandma Ada in her younger days, according to Jinny and Rose – with a pretty, heart-shaped face, rosebud lips and hair styled into a sharp bob that mimicked the look of Clara Bow. Tonight she was wearing a sleeveless, tightly belted dress made of silky cream material, decorated down the front with a contrasting band of gold trim, together with dainty, high-heeled shoes.

  ‘Who’s that chap with her?’ Hazel asked Gladys, watching as Sylvia dragged her young man through the crowd towards the stage where she boldly engaged in conversation with the jazz band’s singer.

  ‘That’s poor Norman,’ Gladys replied with mock gravity.

  ‘Why “poor” Norman?’ Hazel couldn’t help smiling. Sylvia’s companion seemed ordinary enough in his blue blazer and fawn slacks, though he looked a little reticent and perhaps no match for vivacious Sylvia.

  ‘His name’s Norman Bellamy. He’s a warehouse man at Calvert’s, apparently. He and Sylvia have only been walking out for a month or two.’

 
‘“Apparently?”’ Hazel echoed. ‘Does that mean you haven’t found out every last thing about him?’

  ‘No. Lord knows where Sylvia dredged him up from but she started as she meant to go on, making him tag along and stump up for everything – a ticket to the flicks, a day trip to Scarborough, a new dress … You name it, poor Norman has to fork out for it.’

  ‘Miaow!’ Hazel commented then reacted as Gladys dug her in the ribs. ‘Ouch!’ She was still smiling when Eddie came back with their drinks, followed soon after by Sylvia and Norman. Introductions were made as the band went back onstage.

  ‘Did you see me put in a request?’ Sylvia cooed. ‘I asked Earl to sing my favourite song.’

  ‘Earl?’ Hazel prompted. She’d been off the scene for longer than she realized. Long enough for Sylvia to transform from a skinny, sparrow-legged shop assistant into a svelte, sophisticated frequenter of clubs who was on first-name terms with members of the band.

  ‘Earl Ray. This is Earl Ray’s Dixie Jazz Band all the way from New Orleans – surely you’ve heard of them.’

  Hazel shrugged and shook her head.

  ‘“All the way from New Orleans” – my, my.’ Gladys’s flat, dry attempt at an American accent was meant to bring Sylvia down a peg or two but it had the opposite effect.

  For five whole minutes Sylvia insisted on sharing her knowledge of the band – Earl this and Earl that – followed by a complete list of the songs in his repertoire. Hazel picked up a marked unease behind her young cousin’s over-excited account, but she quickly dismissed it from her mind. Norman, meanwhile, drank his beer and made a show of listening intently to the music. It was only when Sylvia stopped chattering and dragged her young man onto the floor to dance that Gladys drew her chair closer to Hazel’s and grew more confidential.

  ‘You won’t tell anyone …’ she began, her eyes narrowing as she followed Sylvia and Norman’s twisting, turning progress across the room. A frown appeared on her delicate, powdered face and she allowed a dramatic pause to develop.

  Hazel tilted her head towards Gladys. ‘Tell anyone what?’

  ‘Sylvia wanted to keep this a secret but it’ll be out in the open soon enough.’

  ‘Come on – spit it out.’

  ‘She and Norman only went and got engaged!’

  The news made Hazel sit back in her seat. ‘You don’t say. How old is he, for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘Eighteen – a year older than Sylvia. Not to put too fine a point on things, everyone thinks they’re in a “rush” to get married. The date’s set for a week tomorrow, as a matter of fact.’ Gladys’s emphasis on the word ‘rush’ was accompanied by raised eyebrows.

  ‘And what do Uncle Cyril and Aunty Ethel think about it?’ Hazel didn’t really need to ask. Sylvia was the baby of the family, spoiled rotten, flitting from job to job, by no means ready to settle down. Besides, as Gladys pointed out, the reason behind this rush to the altar must surely be obvious to everyone.

  ‘Mum and Dad said no at first.’ Flicking ash from her cigarette into the glass ashtray, Gladys let her real feelings show. ‘Think about it – Norman’s on short time at Calvert’s and Sylvia’s presently without a job of any kind. There isn’t even enough money for a ring.’

  Hazel watched the sleek young couple dancing cheek to cheek. No one would think to look at them that they were about to put their heads into a tight noose – getting married on a shoestring, scrabbling together furniture from second-hand shops, begging and borrowing whatever they could. Never mind ‘poor’ Norman, what about poor Sylvia?

  ‘I know what’s going through your mind.’ A sombre Gladys finished her cigarette then stubbed it out with three short, sharp dabs. ‘It’s what the world and his uncle will think.’

  ‘But we don’t know for sure?’

  Hazel’s worldly cousin brushed away the question but there was real concern beneath the flippancy when she spoke again. ‘Put it this way, love, wedding or no wedding, come next spring, Sylvia will be calling on you for your services, you mark my words.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Here was another case of the women of Nelson Yard failing to move with the times. The bothersome thought preoccupied Hazel as she mulled over Sylvia’s situation on the morning after her visit to the jazz club.

  Back in the bad old days, before anyone mentioned the word contraception, ignorance had ruled and unwanted pregnancies had been ten a penny. But then Marie Stopes had come along and supposedly changed all that risky dependence on so-called ‘safe’ periods. Now there were clinics to go to and reliable methods to use if you only knew how to ask for them, unless, like Sylvia, you were flighty by nature and had the habit of burying your head in the sand when it came to sex.

  Hazel’s conclusion unnerved her as she went downstairs to put on her hat and coat, ready to call in on Betty Hollings as promised. That’s not very kind, she told herself. This is your cousin Sylvia you’re talking about and ‘flighty’ is not a nice word to use. Besides, at this stage it’s all guesswork. We don’t even know if she’s pregnant yet.

  Following her train of thought, Hazel failed to notice her mother sitting with her hair in curlers at the kitchen table until Jinny spoke.

  Slowly and deliberately she started to unwind the curlers from the top of her head. ‘We need more bread. Can you buy a loaf while you’re out?’

  ‘I’m working this morning but I will if I can. What sort would you like?’

  ‘The usual.’ Jinny eyed her daughter up and down – from her jaunty straw hat with its narrow brim, past her lightweight summer coat and canvas midwife’s bag down to her shiny tan brogues. ‘Someone looks tip-top this morning,’ she conceded.

  ‘Ta.’ The grudging compliment took Hazel by surprise and she gave a quick smile. ‘I’m off to see Betty Hollings. What are you up to?’

  ‘I’ve a pile of mending to get through before I catch the ten o’clock tram. I’m due behind the stall at half past.’

  ‘So is there anything else you’d like me to get from the shops besides bread?’

  ‘Something for your dad’s tea from Hutchinson’s – a slice of ham or a pork pie. Oh and you could call in at your nana’s with a pint of milk.’

  ‘Rightio. Now I have to go or I’ll be late.’ Briskly Hazel stepped out of the house into the Saturday-morning buzz of housewives chatting on their top steps or shaking dusters out of upstairs windows. There were children playing hopscotch, a lad wheeling a barrow laden with wooden planks and two men with horse-drawn carts having a bad-tempered dispute about who had right of way up and down the narrow cobbled street. The impatient horses stamped and snorted as Hazel squeezed by then turned down the alley into Nelson Yard.

  ‘Look who it isn’t!’ None other than Mabel Jackson greeted her with forced joviality from the far end of the ginnel. Her stocky outline blocked Hazel’s way and, despite her face being in deep shadow, it was clear that Hazel’s rival in the midwifery business was in no mood to stand aside.

  Hazel felt her hackles rise. ‘Good morning,’ she said as cheerily as she could. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m doing nicely, thank you.’ With feet planted apart and dressed in the faded, wrap-over apron she always wore, Mabel was as much a part of the neighbourhood as starched net curtains and scrubbed doorsteps. Her age was difficult to judge – she’d always looked ancient to Hazel, though in fact she was probably in her mid sixties, the same age as Hazel’s grandmother. She was certainly not frail. ‘How about you?’ she prompted, arms folded.

  ‘I’m well, ta.’ Hazel attempted to sidestep the woman but was thwarted by Mabel’s deliberate shift of weight.

  ‘So you’re our new broom sweeping clean, are you?’ As an established handywoman of the old school, with long experience of bringing babies into the world and laying out the dead, Mabel made it plain with a sceptical glance at Hazel’s canvas bag that she was not in favour of stethoscopes, sterilized kidney dishes and surgical forceps.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Hazel’s attempt at a
breezy smile was met by a blank look and a loud sniff. ‘I’m on my way to see how Betty Hollings is getting along.’

  ‘Betty and baby are both fine.’ Mabel spoke forcibly as she fixed Hazel with a steady gaze.

  ‘They are?’ Hazel stalled for time as she worked out the implications of this last remark.

  ‘Yes. As soon as Doreen tipped me the wink that Betty had had the bairn, I made it my business to pop my head around the door. I’ve just come from there now, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Hazel switched her heavy bag from her right hand to her left. Honestly, what was she to make of this open interference?

  ‘I made myself useful while I was at it – tidied up and made them all porridge for breakfast, laid a fire and suchlike.’ Though not hostile, Mabel’s gaze didn’t flinch. ‘That was me being neighbourly. I hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Acknowledging that the wind had been well and truly taken out of her sails, Hazel was by now desperate to get past. ‘My job is to take temperatures, check for jaundice – that kind of thing.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Slowly Mabel nodded and moved out of the way. ‘Betty was singing your praises, by the way.’

  Setting out across the untidy, weed-strewn yard, Hazel hesitated. This was certain to turn into a back-handed compliment, she was sure.

  ‘You kept a cool head by all accounts,’ Mabel went on. ‘Even though it was your first time and Betty said you were shaking like a leaf …’

  ‘Thank you,’ Hazel said through gritted teeth. Here it came – the coup de grâce.

  ‘And your tea-making wasn’t up to much either, according to Betty.’ Mabel’s glee was evident as she watched Hazel hurry about her business. ‘Weak as dish-water, she told me, and only two sugars instead of three.’

  ‘Don’t worry – everyone knows that Mabel’s bark is worse than her bite.’ Hazel’s Aunty Rose was keen to reassure her niece as she sat down on the lumpy chaise longue in the kitchen of number 6 Nelson Yard. The room was otherwise laid out identically to the Hollings’ kitchen – a fireplace with an iron range, a sink in the back corner, with just enough space in the middle for a table and chairs – though here there was not a speck of dust to be seen and everything was scrubbed, polished and starched to within an inch of its life.