by Jenny Holmes
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Anyone would think I was persuading them to have all their teeth pulled out instead of inviting them to a free clinic,’ Hazel said with a sigh as she shook raindrops from her umbrella then sat down opposite Gladys in Nixon’s café on the corner of Ghyll Road and Albion Lane. As the only customers in the small tearoom late on Tuesday afternoon, they’d been free to choose a table by the window, looking out at the shuffling throng of mill workers making their way home, the men with their caps pulled down over their foreheads, the women with grey shawls around their heads and shoulders.
‘What did you expect?’ Gladys had readily agreed to meet up with her cousin straight after work. ‘People don’t like opening their doors to strangers, especially busybodies who try to boss them around.’
‘I’m not a busybody,’ Hazel objected. She was wet through and her feet ached from a full day of walking the streets and rapping on the doors of more than thirty houses on her new list. Sometimes the pregnant women who answered her knock would listen politely and promise to make a note of the time for Dr Bell’s clinic, but more often they would open their door a fraction, take a quick, suspicious look at Hazel then close it again before she’d reached the end of her first sentence.
‘But you are telling them what to do,’ Gladys insisted. ‘“Go to a clinic, get yourself weighed, have your blood pressure taken …”’
‘Which is common sense.’
‘We know that, but they don’t. Remember, women around here have been having babies without any of that rigmarole since the year dot.’
‘And dying in the process,’ Hazel pointed out crossly. ‘And having babies that have been starved of oxygen because—’
‘Don’t!’ Gladys put her hands over her ears. ‘I hear enough of that sort of thing at work to last a lifetime, ta very much.’ For the past year and a half Gladys had worked at the King Edward’s Hospital, making appointments for children suspected of having poliomyelitis to be seen by a specialist. Though not often in contact with the patients themselves, she would overhear gloomy discussions about callipers and wheelchairs and would observe through the office window tearful parents receiving the diagnosis for the first time. ‘It’s enough to break your heart,’ she confessed now.
‘I’m sorry.’ Hazel decided to change the subject as the waitress brought them a pot of tea and a scone apiece. ‘Anyhow, on a more cheery note, what will you wear to Sylvia’s wedding on Saturday?’
Gladys raised her eyebrows. ‘It’ll have to be my cream dress with the little rosebud design – if we get that far.’
‘What do you mean “if”? Sylvia’s not likely to back out at the last minute, is she?’
‘Who knows what Sylvia’s likely to do? Let’s say this – I wouldn’t put it past her to leave poor Norman standing at the altar.’
‘Imagine that.’ Hazel sipped her tea. ‘Of course, I realize it’s all happened in a rush, but surely she loves him? She wouldn’t let him down.’
Gladys shrugged then raised a finger to her lips. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she warned as Sylvia entered the café in a gust of wind and a flurry of raindrops.
‘Look at you two sly things, sloping in here for a treat behind my back!’ she proclaimed before ordering an extra cup and a scone from the waitress. ‘Hazel, you’ve gone red. What are you up to?’
‘Nothing. As a matter of fact, Gladys and I were just talking about your wedding.’
‘Oh, I know – I have a thousand things still to do.’ After an awkward pause, Sylvia took up the reins and galloped ahead. ‘Mum says Marjorie Sykes has promised to bake and ice a cake in time for Saturday – only a single tier but never mind. The church is booked for two o’clock. We’re having the reception afterwards in a back room at the Working Men’s Club on Westgate Road – they’re the only ones who could fit us in at such short notice. Norman is still looking for somewhere for us to live. Let’s hope we won’t have to start married life in a tin shack on Overcliffe Common allotments, eh, Gladys?’
‘Whoa!’ Hazel was relieved to find that her youngest cousin had every intention of going ahead with the wedding despite Gladys’s doubts. Though windswept and bedraggled, she marvelled at how Sylvia still managed to look strikingly pretty, her large brown eyes alive with excitement and her cheeks aglow. ‘You’ve forgotten to tell me the most important thing – what are you going to wear?’
‘Oh Lord!’ Leaving her scone untouched, Sylvia jumped up from her chair. ‘What time is it?’
‘Almost half five,’ Gladys told her. ‘Why?’
‘I have to get to Chapel Street before Jubilee shuts for the day. Muriel Beanland has promised to lend me the wedding dress they have on display in their shop window. You know, the one in slipper satin with georgette sleeves.’
‘Lucky you. You’d better run.’ The words were scarcely out of Gladys’s mouth before Sylvia fled from the café. ‘You see what I mean,’ she told Hazel darkly. ‘It’ll be a miracle if we get as far as Saturday without Sylvia going pop.’
‘She’s not a balloon,’ Hazel laughed. But she did see the point of Gladys’s remark – Sylvia’s excitement appeared to have reached fever pitch, yet it seemed to have an artificial, worked-up quality to it. But maybe this was normal with brides-to-be. ‘What does either of us know about pre-wedding jitters?’ she ventured.
‘Nothing, thank heavens,’ Gladys acknowledged with a wink. ‘We’re both single and fancy free and planning to stay that way – unless you let me down by suddenly falling for this new man at Dr Moss’s surgery.’
‘Dr Bell? Fat chance of that!’ Hazel declared. ‘Oh, I like him, don’t get me wrong …’
‘But?’
‘He’s forty years old if he’s a day, and wearing a wedding ring.’
‘Hmm. Forty would bother me but the wedding ring might not.’
‘Gladys, you wouldn’t!’ Hazel’s scandalized expression failed to silence her cousin.
‘Why not? All the doctors at the hospital are married men but that doesn’t stop them.’
‘You … you’re not!’ Hazel gasped.
Gladys laughed. ‘No, as a matter of fact I’m not. I’m too busy going to evening classes and doing keep-fit twice a week to bother with them. Anyway, let’s get back to the subject of you and Dr Bell.’
‘As I said, I like him. We got on like a house on fire until …’
‘Until what?’ Gladys prompted again. ‘Why are you frowning?’
‘Well, he ended by telling me I should try for a part-time job in an office while I waited for midwifery work to come my way.’
‘And?’
‘And I don’t want to do that.’ Hazel had stayed awake the previous night thinking about Dr Bell’s unwelcome suggestion. ‘It’s not what I’m trained to do. And anyway, that’s a typical man for you.’
‘What is?’
‘To recommend office work. Don’t you think it was big-headed of him to suppose that it’s all right for a girl like me to type letters and lick envelopes?’ Realizing that she’d put her foot in it, Hazel hurriedly backtracked. ‘Not that it isn’t all right. Working in an office is a big step up from mill work and suchlike.’
‘Stop before you dig yourself a deeper hole.’ Gladys rattled her teacup down into its saucer. ‘What you mean is – it’s good enough for someone like me without any qualifications, but not for you. You deserve better.’
‘I’m not saying that.’
‘Yes you are, and you might be right. Who knows? But tell me, oh cousin dear, how many women did you enrol for the clinic today?’
Hazel faltered over her reply. ‘Three, I hope. Two said they would definitely come next week. One said she would if she could.’
Gladys’s steady stare didn’t waver. ‘Out of how many?’
‘Thirty-four. I know it’s not a lot but it’s better than nothing.’
‘But will it keep the wolf from your door?’ Gladys was determined not to let Hazel off the hook. ‘And if not, mightn’t you have to take up
Dr Bell’s suggestion?’
‘I might,’ Hazel conceded as the dark cloud on her horizon grew bigger. This was not what she’d planned when she’d come back to Raglan Road, brim-full of hope and ambition. Then, the way ahead had looked bright and sunny. But today she’d experienced more of the squally showers of disappointment and the way things were going, it was likely that heavy rain would soon be forecast. ‘Let’s face it, unless I line up more work over the next few days, I might jolly well have to.’
‘Try the houses further along Overcliffe Road.’
‘There’s Margie Briggs-as-was on Ada Street – she’s expecting her second.’
‘And what about her sister, Evie? Didn’t she get wed to Stan Tankard earlier this year?’
Helpful suggestions fell thick and fast from Ada and Rose’s lips when Hazel called into their house on Nelson Yard.
On the Wednesday and again on the Thursday morning she followed them up, only to be disappointed time and again.
‘Sorry, we’ve already got Mabel Jackson lined up for the lying-in.’
‘No thank you. We’ll stick with what we know.’
Hazel’s knock always drew the same response – courteous on the whole but nevertheless a firm ‘no’.
Midway through the Thursday afternoon, Hazel steeled herself to call in at Dr Bell’s surgery to report her lack of progress so far. The doctor was out on a house call and it was Eleanor who’d been left to hold the fort.
‘No need to look so down in the mouth about it.’ The receptionist’s reprimand brought Hazel up short. ‘Dr Bell never expected to have women falling over each other to attend the clinic.’
‘They might at least give me a chance to explain the benefits,’ Hazel grumbled.
Eleanor gave Hazel a long, hard stare over the rim of her glasses. ‘Don’t talk – just do,’ was her curt advice.
‘Do what, for heaven’s sake?’ Hazel was on the verge of tears, which she tried to hide by taking out her handkerchief and roughly blowing her nose. Once more she felt cowed by her surroundings – the high ceiling with plaster cornices depicting the Yorkshire rose and garlands of laurel leaves, the red and green stained glass of the porch door. ‘I’ve been to every address on Dr Bell’s list and others besides.’
‘Then think of something else besides knocking on doors. Have you tried making a poster and putting it on display in the town library for a start? Or in chemist’s shops, or on parents’ noticeboards in the local schools?’
‘I haven’t,’ Hazel admitted, giving herself a shake. ‘It’s a good idea, though.’
‘Then do it,’ Eleanor told her. ‘And look sharp about it. It’ll be Tuesday again before you know it.’
After her talk with Dr Bell’s receptionist, Hazel went home with renewed determination. That evening she enlisted her father’s help with the posters. While her mother sat quietly knitting in the last of the daylight, the two of them cleared the kitchen table and got out a ruler, an alphabet stencil and some coloured crayons that Robert found tucked away at the back of the cutlery drawer. Then they measured out lengths of plain wallpaper and began the task of writing in bold letters some facts and figures about the new antenatal clinic on Westgate Road.
‘I’ll be the first to admit these posters are not going to look perfect,’ Hazel conceded, tucking a red pencil behind her ear and standing back to assess their first amateurish effort. ‘We could do with something extra to draw people’s attention – photographs of nice, chubby babies for example?’
‘Go upstairs and look on the tallboy for my copy of Woman’s Weekly,’ Jinny suggested from her corner of the room. ‘There’s a section in there showing knitting patterns for baby bonnets and bootees.’
Robert nodded at his wife and smiled as Hazel ran upstairs to fetch it. Then he fetched a pot of glue from a shelf in the cellar.
‘Here – give me that.’ Jinny put aside her knitting and took the magazine from Hazel as soon as she returned. ‘You carry on stencilling your letters while I cut out some baby pictures for your dad to stick along the top. That way we’ll get on twice as fast.’
Small favours such as this from Jinny meant a lot to Hazel. It had taken her a long time and much heartache to understand that her mother made few shows of affection and that her reserve was a deeply ingrained part of her character.
‘Don’t worry – it’s not your fault,’ Hazel’s Aunty Rose would console her when Hazel was a small child going to Rose for comfort after Jinny had failed to praise her for coming home with a good end-of-year school report. ‘Your mum is happy you’re doing well even if she doesn’t say so.’ She’d always been the same, Rose said – ‘Even before she lost Alec to the war and she had to soldier on alone.’
‘The Lord knows how Robert managed to break down Jinny’s defences,’ Hazel’s grandmother had remarked to Rose in an unguarded moment shortly before Jinny’s second marriage. Hazel was five and Ada might have assumed she was too young to pick up on what was being said.
But Robert had proposed and Jinny had said yes as long as he promised to be kind to Hazel and treat her as his daughter.
‘Which goes to prove she does care about the child,’ Ada had observed.
Robert had been as good as his word. Poorly schooled himself, he’d made up for his lack of education by bringing books into the house. In addition, when Saturday came around, he would take Hazel to the town library to borrow the latest Just William adventure or a much-thumbed copy of Johanna Spyri’s Heidi.
On Sundays he would take her out on rambles and bike rides across Overcliffe Common to the moors beyond, leaving behind the sooty chimneys and high factory walls to explore hidden green glens that smelt of wet ferns and peat. They would return home to a dinner of roast beef served by Jinny in her best dress, her hair in soft waves, face freshly made up. To Hazel she looked like a beautiful, sad princess.
So her mother’s offer to cut out baby pictures gave Hazel a warm glow of gratitude the next morning as she set out on her mission to display the posters in the town library, then closer to home in the chemist’s shop window on Canal Road.
Yes, there was room for one on the General Information noticeboard, the lady in the Lending section told her. A clinic aimed at improving the health and well-being of pregnant women stood a good chance of success so long as it was free. The librarian would put Hazel’s poster in a prominent position and recommend it whenever the opportunity arose.
From the library in the centre of town, Hazel took the tram out along Canal Road and got off at the stop opposite the streamlined, shiny entrance to the Victory Picture House. Carefully threading her way through the rumbling traffic, she crossed the street and headed for Barlow’s chemist’s, rehearsing her speech as she went: Good morning. My name is Hazel Price. Is it possible to speak to the manager, please?
‘Hazel!’ The dark-haired girl who emerged from behind a glass partition recognized her before she’d had the chance to open her mouth. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’
‘Glenda?’ For a moment Hazel was taken aback.
‘Yes – Glenda Morris. Well, look what the cat dragged in!’
The two girls had been at school together, though Hazel had been a few years ahead. She remembered the younger girl mainly from sports days, when she regularly won prizes for the hundred-yard dash and the high jump. Now she was looking grown up and smart in a crisp white uniform, working as a dispenser, making up pills and potions to prescription. ‘It’s nice to see you too, Glenda,’ Hazel joked, aware that she was under scrutiny.
‘What are you doing here? I heard you’d left us for the bright lights.’
‘I did, and now I’m back and asking for a favour.’ Hazel took a rolled-up poster from her bag and put it on the glass counter.
Determined not to be impressed, Glenda took her time to unfurl it and lay it flat.
‘Can I have a word with your manager?’ Hazel asked. ‘I’d like him to display this notice in your window.’
‘“He” is a “she”.’ Gle
nda’s fingernails were painted a shade of coral pink that matched the colour of the blouse she wore beneath the white coat. Her thick hair was cut stylishly short and straight. ‘Mrs Barlow has gone out. She left me in charge.’
Concentrating on her task, Hazel ignored the sound of a car pulling up outside the shop followed by the tinkle of the doorbell behind her. ‘Well, how about it? Will you put the poster in your window?’
Glenda glanced up at her new customer, letting the paper roll back into a tight scroll. ‘Yes, sir, how can I help you?’ she asked in a pleasant tone.
Hazel turned to see that it was John Moxon. His dark hair had been ruffled by the wind and he’d lost his neat side parting. He was dressed in dark blue overalls, looking ill at ease amongst the feminine displays of perfume, talcum powder and shampoo, but he recognized Hazel and managed a polite hello.
‘I’ve been sent to buy a pick-me-up for my wife,’ he explained to Glenda. ‘She’s in the family way. Is there anything you can recommend?’
While Glenda turned to the shelves laden with proprietary medicines, Hazel gave John a pleasant smile. ‘Don’t worry – these last few weeks are often the worst.’
‘So they say. But Myra’s mother called in on her an hour ago and found her passed out on the floor. She sent a neighbour to fetch me home from work.’
‘Myra fainted?’ Hazel couldn’t disguise her concern. ‘Shouldn’t you call the doctor and make sure everything is as it should be?’
John shook his head. ‘Myra doesn’t want a fuss. According to her mother, it’s normal for her to be feeling a bit light-headed at this stage. She says a tonic should do the trick.’
‘Something like this?’ Glenda showed him a bottle containing a thick, clear syrup. ‘It’s cod liver oil with extra Vitamins A and D. My sister swore by it when she was expecting.’
John took the bottle and read the label. ‘We’ll give it a go,’ he decided, feeling in his pocket for the money.
‘Calling the doctor doesn’t mean she’s making a fuss,’ Hazel persisted, picking up an edge of worry beneath John’s casual manner. ‘It might be wise for Myra to have a proper check-up, you know.’